


15 Fragments of Summer

by misdre



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 11:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7932172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misdre/pseuds/misdre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One summer, Max and Rei decide to come up with a plan to get Kai and Takao together - at any cost. However, it doesn't exactly work out the way they thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this using a randomised list of one-word prompts (the chapter names) that i just picked from an old livejournal page for no real reason. it's a bit late for summer now, but my intention was to catch the essence of the season, so some of the chapters aren't very action-packed and rather just contain descriptions of summery scenes that i like. this fandom is very dub-oriented and i'm not, so i attempted to give this story an extra dash of japanese summer.
> 
> one of the chapters contains a couple of suggestive lines but that's the only mature-ish content. this is post-canon so the characters are a bit older.

Another day of training passed, just like every day that had passed before it, and every day that would come after it. The BBA youngsters had been blessed with peaceful life for the past several months, without any more strange or otherwise troublesome occurrences coming their way. It was summer, and the entire team had gathered to spend it together, practicing for whatever sort of event Mr. Daitenji was unquestionably going to throw at them next. The old man derived so much entertainment from watching his favourite young players battle, they fully expected him to come up with a new sadistic idea of unknown sorts. Takao's suggestion was fighting aliens next.

Nevertheless, the peaceful days continued. The gang met up almost every day, using a few hours on training and spending the rest goofing off together, usually at Takao's house, sometimes at Max's dad's hobby shop or at the riverbank, sometimes at the BBA's training hall in the city, and occasionally, they wandered off wherever their feet happened to take them.

One of their favorite places for hanging out was a hilltop, a short walking distance away from town. Even Kai, who arguably always displayed some level of discomfort or detachment, seemed to enjoy this spot surrounded by woods and meadows. The town was visible below, but nobody down there could see them.

This very week, in late June, had been particularly serene as Daichi had gone back to, well, wherever he came from, while Hiromi had gone on early vacation with her family, leaving only the original quintet together. After a typical day of training, they had climbed up the hill again. Takao had rolled back down and was lying leisurely in the middle of some flowers; Hiromi had tried to teach them the art of making flower crowns, and while Takao had initially loudly expressed how little he cared for something so stupid, now that she was gone, he was the most ambitious to make one... Just so he could force it on Kai's head while he was sleeping. It fell to Professor, who had easily memorised the technique, to try to assist Takao with this handicraft. The attempt was pathetic. Max couldn't stop laughing at it for the rest of the day. Kai himself practiced the art of ignoring everything the rest were doing and seemed to focus on making Dranzer climb up and down the hillside.

Several failed flower crown attempts and one setting sun later, Takao decided it was time to go back home, mostly because he was getting hungry. Professor and Kai followed suit, possibly for the same reason; Max was thinking of doing the same, when he noticed that Rei was still sitting at the top of the hill by himself, surrounded by a serene aura. Bidding the rest a ”see you tomorrow”, he climbed back up the steep, grassy hill.

”What are you doing?” Max asked curiously, crawling his way next to the dark haired boy who gave him a questioning glance of his own.

”Just looking at the stars,” Rei answered. ”There's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.”

”Really?? I've never seen one before!” His voice filled with genuine awe, Max looked up at the dark sky. Thousands of stars arched above them like a veil of distant diamonds, gleaming somewhere far away from reach. They didn't seem to be moving, however.

But Max hadn't climbed back up just to know what Rei was doing. He happened to have thoughts of high importance to share.

”Rei,” he began with a solemn tone, ”we really need to do something about Takao and Kai. They  _ still _ haven't made any progress. It's driving me nuts, you know! Have you  _ seen _ how they look at each other??”

”You know I know,” Rei responded.

Observing their friends had been a long-term activity of the two; it was glaringly obvious that Kai and Takao were all over each other, but with Kai's avoidant personality, and Takao simply being Takao, it was like following a pair of blind penguins waddling around while hoping to bump into each other. This was a description Max had formerly constructed to describe the situation.

”I think our duty as their best friends is to help them.” Max lifted his right hand to his heart, or where it was approximately located in his chest. ”How about we make it our goal before the end of the summer? Before you go back to China? It'd be such a grand way to go. We should get those two together!”

”Right, but how? To be honest, I can't imagine either of them confessing at all.”

”Well, maybe actions speak louder than words!”

”So we should set them up in a way that just... drives them in each other's arms or something...” There was a hint of scepticism in Rei's pensive voice.

”Wouldn't that be perfect? Imagine if...” Max cupped his hands and pressed his fingertips together, mimicking the image of two faces pressed against each other. ”... we got them to kiiiiissss!”

Rei let out a short chuckle, but didn't say anything right away. He kept looking up at the black velvet sky above them, his thoughts subtly drifting elsewhere behind his glazy, golden eyes. ”A first kiss, huh...”

Max lifted his own gaze back up, his playful expression softening to a calm smile. ”It would be nice, wouldn't it?”

”Mm-hmm...”

The two were sitting shoulder to shoulder while looking upwards in unison, a gentle breeze of cool night air ever so lightly blowing past them. The hilltop was surrounded by silence, with only the trees below rustling in the warm breeze.

Suddenly, Max jumped a little, letting out a delighted ”ah!”.

”I saw it!” he said, ”I saw a shooting star! Just now!”

Rei, not admitting he was too pre-occupied to notice anything himself, turned to look at the blond. ”So what did you wish for?”

Max pressed his pair of pale hands together excitedly. ”For Cupid to do its job, of course!”


	2. Hide

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

”Here's what we'll do,” Max presented proudly one day. They were sitting in his bedroom, and Max had just laid a box on the floor in front of Rei. ”We're gonna do a movie night.”

”Right?” said Rei.

”With a romantic movie. Like a really damn sappy one, but good.”

”Right?”

”But, you see, it just so happens that you can't come after all, and I gotta leave to do something, like go looking for you, soon after the beginning, so it'll actually just be them watching it together. That'll set the mood just right.”

”And what's this?” Rei looked at the box.

”It's my detective kit. I just bought it.” Max opened the lid to reveal an assortment of magnifying glasses, a notebook, pens, infra red goggles... Rei wasn't even sure what some of them were; but the only things Max picked up from the box were a small black object with what looked like an antenna, and headphones.

”We can listen what they're doing in the room with this,” Max explained with enthusiasm that was just a tad manic in the context, ”I'll just set this device in some place where they can't see it, and you'll be waiting for me outside the room somewhere and then we'll listen to what happens. Just enough to know if it works, of course. I mean, it'd get really weird if they, like, really got into it, and then we just--”

”So we'll be eavesdropping from some closet or something?” Rei interrupted.

”Well... Yes,” Max confirmed.

* * *

And they really did it, of course. Max arranged a movie night at his house – without mentioning which movie they were going to watch, because otherwise everyone would have refused to come and not just Professor, which was part of his plan all along as he knew Professor didn't care for movies, particularly when there was a chance that they watched a horror one – with snacks and all prepared for a perfect deceit. Max had taped the eavesdropping device into the bottom side of the sofa, so they'd hear everything that happened near it.

Rei came by first, not actually hiding in a closet, but rather in Max's parents' bedroom, since Max had conveniently arranged for them to be out that night. He could hear through the door how Takao and Kai arrived a while later, and Max rambled something about him being late for no good reason.  _ At least come up with a good lie,  _ Rei thought to himself, then adding that he had never been late to ANYTHING, not him, nuh-huh.

Whether Takao and Kai bought Max's lies was irrelevant, since they seated themselves in the living room, and everything seemed to be going fine. And Max still didn't tell them what the movie was about. ”It's just this great story, you'll see then,” he said. Rei could imagine the lie showing all over Max's stupid grinning face.

It did feel silly, sitting there in the dark bedroom all alone, but Rei had already decided to commit to whatever plans they'd come up with that summer; so he wore the headphones obediently and listened to whatever came through. It's not like he had anything else to do. The eavesdropping device was frighteningly efficient; Rei realized that he could follow the actual movie just by listening. He did have big, good ears after all.

The movie was apparently about a good-for-nothing guy who traveled to New York to look for his college friend he was in love with. Of course, Max just had to pick a Japanese movie that involved going to America, what else? Occasionally, Takao made remarks about not wanting to watch ”a stinky romance flick”, to which Max just responded that no, no, this movie is great, just watch it, we can watch another one after this.

Rei was so immersed in listening to the film, there was a moment of confusion when Max suddenly declared, ”You know what, Rei's really way too late, I'd better go take a look to see where he is!”, and, expecting the other two to buy that, he up and left. He pretended to leave the house, slamming the front door without actually going through, then sneaked into his parents' bedroom where Rei was sitting with a dumbfounded face.

”What if they just stop the movie?” he asked, whispering.

”I took the controller,” Max responded, showing the black remote controller in his hand.

Their plan now was to share the headphones and keep listening. If something unexpected came up and it seemed like the plan was failing, Max and Rei would go back; and if it seemed like the plan was a success, well, the idea of listening was tempting, but the entire point was to give their friends privacy, so they'd better stay in their lane and stop eavesdropping, because that'd be creepy. According to Rei, anyway.

For a good long while, the two sat in the dark bedroom– they didn't dare to turn the lights on, or do anything else that could potentially give them away – on Max's parents' bed, heads leaning close to each other’s because of the headphones they shared. Mostly all they could hear was the audio from the movie playing and the sound of the other two munching on the snacks, or probably just Takao since Kai never ate (well, in front of other people, anyway). After some fifteen minutes, Takao started complaining, asking for the controller. Kai told him to shut up. The movie was taking an interesting turn: a second girl had appeared to shake things up.

Max and Rei, also, were mostly just listening to the movie at this point. Max had picked it for its good ratings. He trusted ratings. So many people couldn't possibly be wrong.

More time passed. The sound of Takao eating had stopped at some point. Either he had finished it all, or he was paying attention to the film, too. The second girl was no longer a problem, the main couple had a good vibe going on, the girl wanted to enter a photography contest, the boy decided he wanted a photo of them kissing. ”Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Max chanted quietly; not that they could actually hear the kiss in the audio.

Finally, the movie came to an end. The couple didn't stay together, the girl had disappeared after the day they’d kissed. Takao immediately began complaining; as did Max, who unceremoniously tossed the headphones across the large bed once it was over.

”Man, what's with that ending? I really thought it'd last! I hate sad endings like that! They make me feel so... uh...”

Max felt something wet land on the hand he had resting between them on the bed, his sentence left hanging in the air. It was Rei, or more specifically, it was Rei's tears that ran down his face, wild and free and unstoppable. He hadn't said a word during the movie, and he still didn't; just let out a sort of small, miserable sound as he turned away.

”God, I didn't know you're that weak for tearjerkers,” Max said, intending to sound humorous. It was awkwardness that pushed through instead. Panicking for a couple of seconds, he then reached for a box of tissues on the nightstand beside the bed, handing some over to the other boy. Rei took them in silence.

It was a bit weird. Max didn't recall having seen Rei cry before. And it was over a stinky romance flick.

”It's just,” Rei then said in muffled voice, ”so sad.”

Max patted him on the back while Rei kept sobbing into a tissue.

* * *

The plan was an utter failure. Because Max hadn't come back, Takao proceeded to continue eating in the kitchen and complaining about the movie to Kai. Kai said nothing. He always said nothing.

Max and Rei finally faked a late appearance. Max lied that Rei, whose eyes had a mysterious red tint to them, just got the time wrong and too bad that the movie was already over.

”But we could watch another one,” Max concluded.

”Let's watch a horror movie,” Takao decided.


	3. Numb

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Rei had an idea.

The inevitable rainy season had arrived to everyone’s annoyance, painting the sky with bleak, gloomy shades. This made training outside impossible. Usually they were allowed to use the Mizuhara hobby shop's facilities, but every now and then, it was reserved for other purposes. On such occasions, the boys used the actual Beyblade hall a little further away.

This was one such day.

”I just got an idea!” Rei said when he stepped inside from the rain with Max, closing his umbrella. It was decorated with a single yin & yang symbol arching over the entire cover.

He gave Max a cunning smile. ”You know how the Japanese have this thing about sharing an umbrella? In romantic novels and such?”

”Yeah,” Max replied, ”I think that's called aiaigasa?” He put aside his own umbrella, an orange one with green stars on it.

”Isn't it the perfect opportunity? Let's make Takao and Kai share an umbrella, I'm sure it'll heat things up between them a little!”

Max, while silently wondering how Rei knew anything about Japanese romance novels (he had a feeling it had to do with their movie night), agreed with this simple and effective plan. When the other two weren't looking, they would hide one of their umbrellas. Then, they would have to share the one left as they walked back home. It was simple, but the concept wasn't bad.

Professor had arrived at the hall before them. He was sitting on the floor with his beloved laptop next to the stadium, doing whatever professory things he always did. Or not, as he slammed it shut rather suddenly when he noticed Rei and Max entering the room, his face looking slightly redder than usual.

Kai arrived soon after, carrying his pitch black umbrella (it had a pair of cat ears at the top, but the others had learned to quietly disregard this), and to nobody's surprise, Takao was fifteen minutes late. His umbrella was light blue with pictures of F1 cars. He had explained that it used to belong to Hitoshi; as if Takao would choose such an embarrassing umbrella for himself.

The training session was mostly unremarkable. They often ended up fooling around during practice, now that there wasn't any particularly serious reason for them to improve any time soon. This sort of freedom was actually luxurious to them. Professor even presented them a plan to make the Beys more resistant to water and dirt, so they could eventually practice outside in any weather.

After a while, Rei came up with an excuse of needing something to drink and left the room, sneaking to the entrance hall as quietly as he could – given his Byakko clan genes, that meant very, very quietly – to find the umbrellas. He decided to take Takao's, for the sole reason that it looked so incredibly stupid. He tossed the umbrella into the depths of a dark storage room, figuring it was easy enough to find later, but where he couldn't imagine anyone to look at even if they were looking for the umbrella. As he did, he heard the unfortunate sound of the umbrella hitting something in the dark. Breaking it in the same go hadn’t exactly been his intention, but it was too late now, so he could as well pretend it had.

Feeling a little too proud and victorious for this humble feat, Rei returned to the training hall, trying hard to hide a smug grin from his face. It was  _ such _ a good plan, nothing could go wrong this time. Right?

He had underestimated the spontaneous human hurricane that was Kinomiya Takao. About half an hour later, Takao started yelling out of the blue, staring at the clock high on the hall's wall.

”Crap, I completely forgot! Today's Gramps' birthday and I was supposed to be there! Shit, he's gonna murder me worse than ever!”

Grabbing Dragoon from the floor, he stormed out of the hall before anybody else could do more than bat their eyelashes. There was a momentary silence, then Takao's head poked through the doorway again.

”Max, I'm gonna borrow your umbrella 'cause I can't find mine, see ya!”

And then he was gone. Max jumped up from his sitting position, opening his mouth for an objection, but only a lone ”A--” escaped from his mouth before they heard Takao slam the door shut.

”Sheesh,” Professor said, ”he never thinks anything over at all, does he...”

Rei and Max exchanged looks. Then, Rei turned away to facepalm at the wall.

The rest of them agreed that now that Takao was gone, they could all go home as well. Or, in Max and Rei's case, stand at the entrance hall, staring at Rei's lone umbrella in the umbrella stand. Kai had taken his and left without a word, and Professor was armored from head to toe with a yellow raincoat, hiding his laptop carefully inside it.

”Umm...,” Professor began, addressing Max next to him, ”maybe you could call someone to give you a ride home... Or...”

”I left my phone home, I didn't think I'd need it,” Max said and let out a short laugh, rather displaying embarrassment than finding the situation amusing. The laughter echoed in the hollow entrance hall, fading into an awkward silence.

* * *

A few minutes later Max found himself under the yin & yang umbrella, held by Rei for being taller of the two. Professor had escaped the scene on a bike. Takao's ditched umbrella was completely unusable. And the rain continued relentlessly.

”Sorry about this...,” Max said, scratching his floofy hair.

”No need to be.” Rei sighed and playfully shook the fist of his free hand. ”Remind me to never try to persuade Takao into doing something again.” Then he sighed again, hanging his head in defeat.

The umbrella was, as umbrellas tended to be, rather cramped for two people. Matching each other's steps to avoid the rain that pursued them to its best ability, they felt imprisoned by a thick veil surrounding them, drumming steadily against the arching cover above their heads. The rain muffled all other sounds, isolating them into their own narrow bubble, creating a sort of eerie impression of them being all alone in the gloomy, grey world closing in around them.

Rei was thinking that it was a little embarrassing. Max was thinking that it was pretty exciting.

”But this is kind of fun!” the blond indeed stated, ”And it's just a 30 minutes walk. No worries!”

Rei, although distressed, found himself smiling at Max's words nevertheless. ”You could give me some of that energy of yours. Still cheery when surrounded by this downpour.”

”I don't dislike rain,” Max said. ”It comes down for a while, and then everything's all refreshed and there's that nice scent, you know. And the plants are happy.”

”Sure, sure. Just keep all this water away from me.”

Max tilted his head to the side (which in their position was enough to give Rei a light headbutt). ”You're so intense about not getting wet.”

”Don't think you'll get me to swim any time soon, I know you and Takao are planning to force me to,” Rei said and in return pushed Max gently, with just enough force to have him briefly outside the umbrella's range. Max sprung back like a sponge.

”We'll see about that!” Max defied impishly, brushing himself back to Rei's side. His bare upper arm pressed against Rei's hand holding the umbrella; suddenly, Max jumped back a little on his own accord.

”Whoa, your hand is  _ freezing _ ,” he said, genuinely startled. ”Are you cold, Rei?”

”What are you surprised for, when it's raining this hard?” Rei had slowed down upon Max's reaction. Now the two halted their steps altogether, standing in the middle of the road.

Without a word, Max wrapped both of his hands around Rei's, frowning furiously; Rei only stared at him, taken aback by such a strong response.

”What?”

”It's really, really cold! It feels like marble!”

”Max...”

”Let me take the umbrella, you should warm yourself up.”

”I'm fine, I can take this much until we reach town. Come on.”

Rei recommenced walking, trying to shake Max's hands off, only to end up dragging him along from his hands that were still grabbing Rei's, clutching the umbrella handle.

”But!” Max whined.

”What are you being so stubborn for?” Rei asked, increasingly confused every second. ”I said it's fine.”

”Won't you get sick if you stay this cold? I take back what I said earlier, if your body heat drops this low in water, let's not have you ever swim with us,” Max said with such grave concern, it almost made Rei laugh.

”Good – okay, all right, let's do this, then.” Rei forcefully yanked the umbrella out of Max's reach, moving it to his other side. He gave his other, now freed hand back to Max. ”I'll keep the umbrella, and you can grab this all you want. Deal?”

Max wasn't entirely satisfied, as Rei's left hand was still subjected to the chill, but he nevertheless took firm hold of the right hand offered to him. It was alarmingly cold. As they walked down the slightly steeping road, Max kept brushing his thumb across Rei's cold skin, hoping to share some of his own fingers' warmth. The rain kept coming down, unaware of the distress it was causing below.

After five minutes of listening to the steady wash of the downpour and its droplets striking against the umbrella, Rei spoke again.

”... Max.”

”Yeah?”

Rei turned to look at the other with a pained expression. The tips of his pointy ears had gained a red hue.

”You're squeezing too hard. My fingers are going numb.”


	4. Study

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

Summer holidays had officially started, but Takao had missed various classes for traveling around participating in Beyblade tournaments and other Bey-related shenanigans, so to make up for the lost time, he had been assigned extra summer homework, and quite a lot of it. Professor had missed most classes all the same, but he was studious by virtue and had caught up with all the work throughout the semester. Takao, on the other hand, hadn't even considered the possibility of there being consequences for missing classes. What a surprise.

Every Monday, Professor barged into the Kinomiya household at dawn, forced Takao to sit down on his butt, piled the books in front of him, and personally supervised that Takao actually finished even a fraction of his homework. Sometimes the others tagged along and helped him, as Professor got surprisingly ferocious when he entered his lecturing mode.

”I’ve heard that Kai’s got some good grades, you know,” Max explained his plan while having lunch with Rei one day, ”we should somehow get him to give Takao a private lesson, without Professor around – or us, obviously – it would totally set the mood, that kinda thing brings people closer to each other, don't you think??”

”I guess,” Rei answered pensively. ”But how are we going to get Kai to agree to this?”

Max hadn't exactly sorted it out.

The next Monday arrived, and they did successfully invite Kai to come over to Takao's place along with them, with the excuse that they could train at the dojo together after Takao finished studying. As part of the plan, Max had brought his own summer homework along – the regular homework that everyone was assigned – and schemed to draw Professor's attention away from Takao by demanding his help instead. In reality, Max was quite studious himself and had already finished all the work before; but Professor didn't need to be aware of this fact.

”Just ask Kai to help you!” Max told Takao, now left to his own devices. ”Kai can do that much, right??”

He flashed a deceitfully angelic smile at Kai, who mostly looked like a wild animal thrown into a cage, ready to attempt escaping any moment.

”Why?” Kai asked, his eyes shifting towards the door.

”Because! You're good at school! So get Takao to finish at least a couple of things! Ah, we'd better let you concentrate, so let's go work somewhere else!” Max grabbed Professor's collar with his left hand and Rei's with his right, zooming out of the room before Kai could make a move towards the door himself.

”Sheesh, what is this about?” Professor huffed, somewhat offended.

Max had dragged them into the kitchen, and set his books down on the dining table. ”It's fine, isn't it? Let's let those two have some alone time.”

”But, Max... I looked at your math homework – you have already finished all of it, haven't you?"

”Um... Uhh, well -”

”He wanted you to look at his answers,” Rei butted in to compensate for Max's stutter, ”since you're so reliable, you can tell if he made any mistakes.”

”Yeah, yeah! That's it!” Max nodded his head furiously.

”Is that so...” Professor grabbed the book, looking down at another one beneath it. ”English? Max,  _ why  _ would  _ you _ need any help with English...” He furrowed his brows in suspicion – not that the other two could see it, as said brows were hidden under a bush of thick, brown hair, but they could hear it in his voice.

”Ahaha... ha... Obviously I don't need help, I just... thought I could get the assignments done better this way,” Max explained, droplets of nervous sweat forming on his forehead.

Professor shook his head a little, very likely rolling his eyes, located in the same depths as his brows, and turned his attention to Max's math homework. Max threw a troubled glance at Rei, but the other merely gave him a shrug, giving him no other choice but to open the English textbook and pretend to actually do something with it. Max wondered why he had even brought so many books with him.

”Do you seriously need to study English?” Rei asked as Max scanned through the book, looking for something to do with it.

”Well, yeah, writing essays and stuff. I'm actually pretty bad at that. I'd rather not write anything in English or Japanese, or anything else for that matter.”

”Hmm, that makes sense. I heard they study Japanese at Japanese schools, too.” Rei leaned curiously over to look at the book on the table, moving his chair closer. ”But you use a textbook for it.”

”It's theoretical stuff. I really don't like it much.”

Rei kept staring intently at the book for a moment. He lifted his serious gaze to Max's face.

”Max,” he then said. ”Could you teach me English?”

This was not the reaction Max had expected. He made a dumbfounded face at the other boy.

”Were you not reading the book?! I thought you know English already, you've traveled around the world and all!” But now that he thought of it, it wasn't like Rei had ever said he could speak English; it was an assumption Max had made early on but never addressed.

”W-Well, no, I have Chinese acquaintances everywhere,” Rei muttered. ”I know enough English to get by, but it'd be nice to be conversational.”

For a second or two, Max only stared at Rei, both surprised by this realization and wondering whether his remark had hit a weak spot in Rei's pride; he was looking a little uneasy. Rei really didn't enjoy having his own shortcomings pointed out to him. Seeing the ever-so-rational Rei react that way to such a trivial thing brought an apologetic smile to Max's face.

”I've never taught anybody before, but sure, let's try it out! I'll make you an expert in English!” he said chipperly, giving Rei's shoulder an encouraging pat. He was relieved to see Rei's expression brighten up back to his usual soft smile.

Professor let out a loud sigh, reminding the two of his presence around the same table, and tossed the math workbook at Max. ”It's perfect. Excuse me, but I'm really doubting that you came here to do your homework in the first place.”

Max opened his mouth, not entirely sure what he was about to say but prepared to respond anyway, when the door of Takao's room was suddenly slammed open and Kai made his way past them and straight out of the house without paying them any attention, only mumbling ”this is stupid” to himself.

”I don't think your plan worked,” Rei stated to Max.

Max shrugged. ”Well, it was worth a shot,” he said, not sounding particularly disheartened. Yet.


	5. Words

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

”All we need to do is get them to confess to each other!” he announced pompously while they were having one of their English sessions at Max's house. It was a grey, drizzly day, perfect for holing up inside to study.

”Obviously,” Rei commented without raising his eyes from the book, ”if that was an easy feat, we wouldn't even need any of these plans.”

Max shook his finger at the other boy. ”You need to think outside the box! See, if we can't get them to confess directly, then... let's have them do it indirectly!!” Victoriously, he took out a device that resembled both a mobile phone and a cassette recorder. ”I'm gonna record their individual confessions!”

”What the hell is _that_?” Rei asked, staring at the awkwardly modeled device.

”It came with that detective kit bought earlier, did you forget already?”

”Oh. Right.”

”Just stay here and work hard on that vocabulary, I'll be back before you even realize.”

”Sure. Good luck.”

* * *

And so, Max commenced his plan by turning up at Takao's house some hour later, alone. They habitually appeared at each other's houses without any notice whatsoever.

The voice recording device at ready in his pocket, Max pretended to be simply dropping by for no reason. Takao wasn't doing anything special himself, so they ended up playing Mario Kart in his room.

After one glorious victory and two insignificant losses, Max dropped the controller on the floor. While Takao was too busy being his usual cocky self over standing on the podium, Max grasped the opportunity to move on with his plan.

”Too bad we can't play four against four,” he lamented, ”even Professor's not around. Now that I think of it, Kai hasn't dropped by this week, has he?”

”Nah, but he's annoying to play with anyway, he roasts my ass every time. I dunno how. He never even plays games.”

Ignoring this remark, Max boldly carried on. ”Isn't it a bit lonely not having him around?” he asked. ”He's one of us and all.”

Takao gave his friend a reassuring look, a content smile on his features. ”Well, sure, it'd be nice to see him more, but you know what Kai's like – he needs his time alone and all that. He'll be here when he feels like it.”

Max made a long humming sound. He knew what Takao said was true, of course; but he hadn't expected such a mature answer coming from him.

”Don't you miss him even a tiny bit?” Max asked allusively, leaning a bit closer with a sly smile.

”Not really, I can just text him if I want to. Not that he ever replies but anyway. So, are you ready for Rainbow Road??” Takao raised his own controller, going for the selection screen without waiting for Max whose head had flopped in defeat, while Takao was blissfully oblivious about anything.

* * *

 _Okay,_ Max thought to himself as he left Takao's house a bit later, fingers throbbing painfully from clasping the controller, _maybe that didn't really work out, but if I get Kai to say something and make Takao listen to it, it could still work._

So he proceeded to look for Kai. He knew for a fact that Kai hadn't left town, but his daily whereabouts were still a Kai-esque mystery. Max looked through a few places where he knew the grumpy boy spent his time. Surely enough, Max spotted him lying at one of his hiding spots, covered by trees so no person would end up there without purpose. The weather wasn't ideal for lying around in damp bushes, but this didn't seem to stop Kai from doing it anyway.

”Kai!” Max called out, emerging from behind a tree. ”I was looking for you, and there you are!”

Kai said nothing, but sat up on the ground, pieces of grass stuck in his hair and scarf. He gave Max a questioning look. Max interpreted it as “you can talk now, but if you're here to waste my time, I'm gonna go back to sleep”.

”Um... I was just wondering why you haven't been around this week,” Max began cautiously, seating himself on the ground. ”I mean, the weather is getting better, we could be training together again! And... games are more fun when there's more people... Haha...ha...”

From the look on Kai's face, Max could tell he had fully expected something along those lines.

”Did you lose to Takao again or something?” Kai asked in return.

”Well, I did but --”

”You want me to get revenge and roast his ass again?”

”That's not what I --”

Kai laid back down, staring at the sky that was remarkably of the same hue as the front of his hair. ”I guess I can join you in training tomorrow.”

Max nodded his head frantically. ”You should, you should! You know, Takao says it's _reaaally_ lonely and boring without you around, you should join us more often for his sake if nothing else – don't you miss him too? A little? A tiny bit? This much?” Max displayed the measure with his fingers, one centimeter at best between them. He flashed a hopeful smile, despite feeling like his chances were about as slim as the space between his fingertips.

The look Kai gave him really told it all.

Without a word, Kai reached for his pocket, taking out a small bag. He poured something herb-like on his palm and flung his arm at the confused Max, the contents landing on his clothes and fair hair.

Max opened his mouth to form a question, but everything happened faster than words could form in this throat; he could feel the impact of dozens of scurrying legs on the ground, and the ominous air of something approaching really, really fast; and a few seconds later, an army of cats rocketed towards him from every direction, throwing themselves wildly at the dried catnip covering him all over.

* * *

The dusk of twilight was already setting in when Max made his way home, his hair messy with remains of catnip, his shirt torn here and there, his clothes damp in general from rolling around on the ground. He had listened through his recording on the way back, and it mainly contained a series of ”meow”s and sounds of his own struggle.

”Well, that _definitely_ didn't work out,” he said aloud and shrugged as he stepped inside the house.

To Max's surprise, Rei's shoes were still at the entrance. He headed over to his room, and surely enough, the dark haired boy was there – sleeping against the desk, probably drooling on the English textbook he was using as a pillow.

 _You could just have left if you were that bored,_ Max thought, but couldn't help a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He inched closer, wondering if he should poke Rei awake or not. He did look rather peaceful leaning against the desk. Maybe if Max made some tea to have an actual excuse for waking him, he would feel less bad about it.

His gaze inevitably drifted towards the notebook next to Rei's head. Only one of the spread out pages had any writing on it: a list of several nonsensical, out-of-context lines in English, starting off in neat handwriting from the top, gradually turning scribblier towards the end, until the writing faded away altogether. It took Max a few careful attempts to be able to read the last few messy words, so faint he could hardly tell the letters apart, at the very end of the page.

” _I like you._

_I thinking about you always._

_Do you like me?”_

Max leaned over the other boy and shut the notebook, figuring it the best to pretend he never saw any of it.

”It's 'think', not 'thinking',” he said quietly, before straightening his posture and leaving the room again.


	6. Diary

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, they had an idea.

The relentless drumming of the rainy season sounded against the glass of Max's window, leaving the two of them isolated in his house for the who-knew-how-manieth time. The others had left just before it began pouring down hard again. Rei, who didn't have an actual home to return to in town, was left lying on Max's bed while the blond himself was gazing out of the window, through the thick curtain of water.

”It feels like the rainy season's just going on and on this summer,” he wondered aloud, “but it’s the same thing every year...” He might not have hated rain, but in the long run, it got inconvenient. Moreover, Takao had yet to return his umbrella (he perpetually forgot to bring it with him – why Max hadn't just marched into his house to get it himself was, well, mostly because he needed an umbrella if he didn't want to get soaked on his way to the Kinomiya residence, and while he wasn't quite as hysteric about getting wet as Rei, it still wasn't something he desired to do).

Rei was curled up on the bed, like a cat. ”For real,” he worded lazily. The weather had him tired. It wouldn't have been the first time that Rei napped the rainy hours away; once Max's father was free from work later, he didn't mind giving his son's friends a ride with his car. Maybe he should give Max a ride to take his umbrella home, too.

Max threw a somewhat apologetic glance at the other boy; while doing so, his eyes landed on something else next to the bed.

”Huh? Isn't that Takao's?”

It was a bag. Exactly how absent-minded Takao could be, his friends would never be able to fathom. Max walked over and kneeled next to the backpack that was lying on the floor, forgotten, its contents spilling out. At least Dragoon didn't seem to be there; Takao had probably carried it in his pocket instead. Thank God.

Rei peeked over the edge of the bed. ”It is. Was he in that much of a hurry to leave?”

”I guess so.” Curiously, Max picked up what looked like a notebook amongst the things that had escaped the wide open backpack, knocked over on the floor. At first, he thought it was something for school, which would have been strange enough for Takao to carry around that day; but as Max flipped it over, it said ”Diary” in scrawny letters on the cover.

”Diary?” he repeated the word, dumbfounded. ”Does Takao keep a diary? Now that's a surprise!”

Rei, struck with curiosity himself, sat up from his lazy position. ”I've never heard him mention that.”

”Well, aren't diaries kind of private? I guess even Takao has things like that.”

”Yeah...”

They both gazed down at the thick notebook quietly. The rain was falling heavily behind the window, enhancing the brooding silence between them even further.

”We shouldn't look at it, right,” Max said slowly.

”No,” Rei agreed, ”that'd invade Takao's privacy.”

They both lifted their heads a little, thinking hard over the concept of Takao's privacy. He was a very open fellow – truth told, neither of them could imagine what he would want to hide away in a diary. Unless...

”But what if he wrote something about Kai?” Max then worded the tempting idea.

”That sounds like something a lovesick girl would do,” Rei tried reasoning, despite his train of thought following Max's precisely.

”Nothing wrong about a guy doing it too. Takao has his tender side, isn't this what we're trying to get out of him, if we have concrete evidence it'll be easier to drive them together,” Max persuaded excitedly, clutching the diary harder. The gleam in his eyes was almost manic; Rei wanted to tell him to calm down... but.

”... It's still Takao's privacy.”

”I know.”

”I think he would mind... Maybe.”

”Probably, a little bit.”

”But not very much?”

Rei had slid out of the bed. They were both staring at the notebook intently. A bead of sweat rolled down Max's pale forehead.

”Let's just scan through it to see if he mentions Kai. Okay?”

After a few seconds of half-hearted hesitation, Rei nodded. ”Okay.”

They took a deep breath in unison. Then, Max opened the first page of the diary, sending an apology to Takao in his mind.

A dense silence, only the muffled sound of the rain breaking through, fell upon the two of them once more. Their foreheads nearly pressed against each other's, the two stared down at the gridded paper between them. Somewhere beyond Max's room, the sound of a clock ticking seconds away mixed in with the punctual drumming of the rain.

Slowly, Max lowered his hands. Then, he loosened his grip entirely, letting the notebook flop on the floor between the two of them.

It was not an actual diary. The first page had a lot of writing, but most of it was in Professor's neat handwriting, assigning a training schedule for Takao. It seemed that Professor had told Takao to keep a ”diary” of his Beyblade practice. Below Professor's strict assignments was more of Takao's own scrawny handwriting; apparently, he had had the motivation to write the diary for the first page or so, then the writing became lazier and more scarce. Needless to say, there was nothing about Kai whatsoever, never mind any heartfelt confession of Takao's passionate feelings towards him.

Max and Rei sat in disappointed silence for some time. Then, Max put the notebook away in Takao's backpack, and started laughing. Rei, on the other hand, let out a long sigh of defeat and leaned back, the excited tension fading into thin air.

”As if something that convenient would actually happen.”

”I know!” Max admitted in the middle of his uncontrollable giggles.

* * *

Takao noticed early on that he forgot his backpack at Max's place, but it wasn't as if he particularly needed it tonight, so he just let it slide. After successfully evading his grandfather's usual kendo assault attempts, he emerged into his own room with some snacks and jumped on his bed. He grabbed a small book from his table drawer, using a key he hid under his pillow on a tiny, golden lock attached to the book, and flipped through pages and pages of lively writing and things he had taped and glued to the book as mementos. Many of those things were photos of his friends; the others were movie tickets, receipts, newspaper articles of both the BBA and other Beyblade teams, and other things Takao simply cherished for one reason or another.

Takao grinned as he took a pen to add today's entry to his diary. ” _It was another rainy day, so we still didn't get to practice outside – though knowing Kai, he might be doing it anyway – but at least things are still going smooth between those two._ ”


	7. Heartbeat

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Rei had an idea.

”So I've been watching these dramas --” Rei began one day, while they were sitting outside in the sun, enjoying the opportunity now that the rain had passed.

”Again?” Max interrupted him.

Rei blinked, making a dissatisfied face.

”It's just,” Max carried on, looking at his chocolate chip mint cone, ”I didn't know you're the kind to watch movies or anything like that. You never had any interest.”

”W-Well, it's just one part of broadening my view of the outside world, you know.” Rei turned his head away, a little bashful. ”Anyway. There was this romance drama...” There was a pause. ”I know what you're thinking.”

Max hid innocently behind his ice cream, saying nothing, whilst holding back a chuckle. It was the romantic dramas again. Ever since that movie night the other day. Once Hiromi returned from her vacation, she and Rei could bond over those for sure.

”And I noticed,” Rei continued then, ”there's this recurring pattern to set the mood with candles and music and such. It looked fun, so I thought, why don't we try that out? There was also a bubble bath but that could be a bit harder to carry out.”

_ You don't need dramas to know that much about a generic romantic scene _ , Max thought to himself, but there was a certain charm to Rei's obliviousness regarding the topic, so he kept his mouth shut again. The humor came from the fact that Max had fully expected Rei to have experience of some shape already; back when they had only just formed the team, Rei had felt like more of an adult compared to the rest of them. Well, little by little, that playboy sort of aura had effectively faded. Max was fairly sure that Rei had never taken a girl on a date before, and listening to him be so fascinated by romantic dramas on television, this image only grew stronger.

”Well, that's a straightforward idea,” Max decided to comment. ”Setting Takao and Kai up like that could be hard, though. Where should we do that?”

”Why not Takao's room?” Rei suggested.

”Huh?? But...”

”His grandfather will let us in even if Takao's not around, so we could sneak into his room and set the scene, then just wait for them to follow.” Rei had put actual thought into this already. He was fairly pumped by all those dramas he had watched.

”Looks like you've thought this through already,” Max worded the thought with a shrug, ”I'll follow you, then.”

”Yes. I bought the candles already. They smell like vanilla.”

”Seriously...” Max lowered his eyes to the cone in Rei's hand. ”Speaking of vanilla, your ice cream is melting.”

* * *

And so, another silly plan was set in motion. Thanks to all the time they had spent together, it was easy to predict when Takao would be training with Kai at the dojo, and that they would afterwards move to hang out in Takao's room. With both Professor and Hiromi temporarily out of the way (both were on family vacations), this was their best shot, so Max and Rei made their way to the Kinomiya household as planned. Takao's grandfather, indeed, let them in without asking questions. He had no reason not to.

Taking their time, Rei and Max gave Takao's room a small makeover. They covered the window so the candles' dim light had more effect. They left the desk lamp on, but put a red piece of cloth over it, so the entire room got a reddish hue. They arranged the candles to create a pathway across the room. Rei had even brought red rose petals, scattering them around Takao's bed. To both of them, it mostly looked like a pain in the ass to clean up afterwards, but Rei was nevertheless convinced that it was a good and romantic thing to do, because his romantic dramas said so. Max didn't have the heart to point out that there were a lot of incredibly stupid and unrealistic things on television. Did Rei's village back in China even have electricity? Max wasn't sure, and frankly, it felt rude to ask.

Rei was still in the middle of carefully littering Takao's bed with flowers when Max suddenly let out a shriek. He was at the window, pointing out in horror. ”They're coming!! They left the dojo already and they're at the door soon!”

”Already?” came Rei's panicked reaction; but the truth was they had been awfully slow and carried away setting up the room. Chances were Takao and Kai were taking a break early – maybe wondering where the two of them were, they now realized. Rei and Max had intended to get out of the house and leave, but as it was now... They couldn't sneak out anymore. They could hear their friends approaching the room already.

They had to hide. But Takao's room was plain, and he didn't even have a closet large enough for a person to cram themselves in, let alone two. So it happened that their only option was to crawl under the bed that they had currently been messing up.

”This'll never work,” Max mumbled, feeling like he was in a badly written drama himself. Rei responded with a ”sshhh”. Barely positioning themselves under the cramped space, they froze in motion when the door opened. During the last half a second, Max pulled in the end of Rei's ponytail that was still hanging outside the bed. He ended up clutching the tuft of dark hair while holding his breath; behind him, closer to the wall, Rei was likewise holding his.

Takao stopped dead in his tracks at the door. ”'The hell is this?” he barked.

They couldn't hear Kai saying anything; what a pity it was, thought Max, unable to see their faces like this. All he could do was stare at their feet.

Takao walked in and stopped in the middle of the room, probably looking around. ”Seriously... What the hell. Is this a joke? Did Gramps do this before leaving to the store just now?”

”Why would he,” Kai responded as any sensible person would. Max had a feeling that Kai saw right through their idiotic plan, as he usually did. As if reassuring him further of the fact, Kai continued, ”well,  _ someone _ went through this much trouble to make it look like a damn love hotel. It's a little impressive.” His tone was amused, but surprisingly void of sarcasm.

”Hah. Look at all this junk.” Takao jumped on his rose-covered bed. ”Fine, I'll ask Gramps about this later, so whatever. It looks kinda nice anyway. I'm gonna call Max now, he's never this late.”

Obviously, Max didn't have his phone with him – he had been prepared for that much. Max and Rei lay there in silence as Kai sat next to Takao above them, the old bed giving in just a little under the weight of the two, making it even more cramped beneath. With the sultry weather and the room being full of candles, it was hot. It was hot, enough to make Rei sweat, and the stuffy air under the bed had a scent of... something that was not vanilla? Rather, it was a little citrus-like...

Rei blinked, but as he did, he realized, it must have been Max's hair. Rei hadn't exactly buried his face in the back of Max's head, but it was close enough: he was practically resting his chin on the blonde locks of hair in front of him. And that hair happened to have such a sweet scent, it mixed in with the vanilla of the candles into a pleasant aroma. It was a little surprising, that Max would smell so nice.

_ What am I thinking... _ , Rei lamented inside his head. The realization of Max's head being so close had suddenly made him very self-conscious of their position in the small, cramped space, with Rei's taller frame pressed against Max's smaller, leaner one. Before he knew, Rei's thoughts wandered off to the dramas he had watched – yes, this was, essentially, the stance for what was called spooning, was it not? Rei's face suddenly felt unreasonably warm, and not only because it was hot down there.

_ Oh, God, why. _

All and any of Takao and Kai's idle chatting completely missed Rei's ears as he found himself squirming uncomfortably in place. He had now become very aware of his stance and the awkward positioning of his arm, sort of hanging between the two of them, and the more conscious he became of it, the faster it felt a little prickly, as if going numb, and the desire to stretch it and reach it out grew stronger every passing second, but it would very much be the same as embracing Max who was lying pressed against him, and that would just be even more awkward, wouldn't it, but he really wanted to do it, it now dawned on him, he really wanted to place that arm on the smaller boy, and he wasn't sure why this felt like such an issue, but the thought was just so tempting but also indecent, and maybe, that's exactly what was so tempting about it.

_ No, no, no _ , he reasoned, beads of sweat forming on his flustered face,  _ it's just that my arm is going numb, and I really need to goddamn move it. _

Unaware of this silent struggle at full throttle behind his shoulder, Max was listening to Kai and Takao, who were wondering about contacting the two of them. They didn't seem worried about their lateness – rather, judging from the tones of their voices, they almost sounded like they didn't expect them to show up. It was a strange conversation in Max's ears. Neither Max nor Rei were ever late for practice, so Max had expected them to be more surprised.  _ I wonder why... _

Suddenly Max froze, but not because of the conversation, but rather, he noticed a tickly sensation around his nose. It was only a given, the floor under Takao's bed was, in fact, more or less covered in dust.

_ Oh, God, why. _

Max twitched his head. He attempted to hold the sneeze back, but it only made him twitch harder, and then again, and for a split second he thought, now, it wouldn't even matter if he plunged out from under the bed --

Rei reached out his arm and pinched Max's nose between his fingers.

Nothing happened. For a while, they stayed that way, not moving an inch, Rei holding Max's nose, Max still holding Rei's ponytail in a sweaty palm, eyes wide in both surprise and anticipation and mild panic. They waited, but neither Takao nor Kai had any reaction.

In the end, Rei found his arm wrapped around Max anyway, albeit the second he realized Max was about to sneeze, his flustered thoughts gave way to the severity of the situation. Slowly, he loosened his grip, feeling Max breathing in deep. Rei's heart had been racing like mad all this while, feeling like it would make its way up his throat any minute now, but also, as it kept hammering against Max's back pressed against his chest, he wondered if the other boy could feel it.

Takao, eventually, jumped off the bed. ”Whatever, Gramps's probably coming back soon, I'll go wait for him.”

Rei and Max quietly stared at his feet that rushed out of the room. Their thoughts finally united, a tiny relief washed over them. They expected Kai to follow Takao, and then they could finally sneak out, or at the very least, get out from their hiding spot. It was hot and dusty and all around uncomfortable and they were holding their breaths again and were in acute need for fresher air.

But Kai never did as he was expected to. Just as the two under the bed relaxed a little, Kai's head appeared upside down in front of them. There wasn't a hint of surprise in his dark eyes, nor in his voice as he spoke.

”You two are the biggest idiots I have ever seen.”


	8. Beautiful

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

He met up with Rei one morning looking even bouncier than usual, unusually bubbly so early in the day.

”Guess what, guess  _ what _ ! Mama got a free reservation for this one totally great inn with onsen, and she let me have them 'cause she and daddy are going to Kyoto tomorrow! She said I could bring anybody I wanted!”

It just so happened that the reservation was for two twin rooms, in other words four people. It was the perfect opportunity to take Takao and Kai along and set just the right mood. Hiromi was still away on a family vacation, and Professor's family was attending some sort of noodle stall expo or something equally strange, so going by the four of them didn't pose any problems.

”Isn't it just great, the romantic atmosphere of relaxing in the warmth of the onsen,” Max fantasized with his fingers dramatically crossed, ”under the setting sun and the cherry blossom trees...”

”Cherry trees aren't in bloom anymore,” Rei pointed out.

”And the lilac trees...,” Max corrected, ”And then, a night spent together in a private room...” A pre-emptively victorious grin on his face, he clenched his fists excitedly. ”There is no way this could fail!”

It did sound like a good idea, Rei nodded, much better than attempting to set them up in Takao's room.

But weren't they overlooking something about this plan...? Something that stirred a nervous feeling in Rei...

Nevertheless, Max called Takao to invite him, telling him to bring Kai along. Takao was glad to agree – the last time he had been to an onsen was before Team BBA was even formed. The life of a Beyblade celebrity was busy. At least, up to this leisurely summer.

And so they made the necessary preparations, packed their bags, and decided to meet at the bus stop the next day. The inn was a couple of towns away, it was a place where Max had apparently spent family vacations before, while the others had never heard of it.

Takao arriving late – but not late enough to miss the bus – was anything but surprising, but it was also the moment when Max's smooth plans were ruined before they even got started. The companion following after Takao was not Kai, but rather, the very small Daichi, dragging along a backpack as big as himself.

”So, Kai didn't really wanna come,” Takao said apologetically, ”he kinda said he doesn't give a shit, but Daichi dropped by my house yesterday and he was super excited to come along instead! Lucky, right?!”

Max and Rei looked at each other in silence. So long for that plan, too.

But, at least they got to go to an onsen.

The bus trip took around an hour, and Max guided the rest as they hopped off to witness what looked like a town full of nothing but inns and hotels as far as they could see. And not just any regular run-down inns or tourist traps... all the places looked uncannily posh. It was the sort of place where one could almost  _ smell _ the money.

Max led them a bit further away from the other buildings, to an area that looked like a park with more greenery than the area they left behind, and there, they finally arrived at their destination. Takao, Rei and Daichi all stared at the building in front of them with their mouths gaping open, a beautifully constructed Japanese inn on top of a small hill. Even the staircase leading up the hill was so gracefully ornate, one could have expected it to lead to a temple. It was the embodiment of the word ”luxury”.

”Max...,” Takao said slowly as the blond walked up to the stairs, the rest of them still standing awkwardly in place, ”Is this seriously... where you come for family vacations...?”

”Sure it is,” Max said carefreely. ”This place is Mama's favorite. We usually stayed here for a week!”

As they entered the inn through doors so tall, it felt like stepping inside a castle, the elderly hotel clerk, dressed in a kimono, greeted them as if they were old friends. ”Hello there, Max-bocchan, good to see you again! It has been a while! And I am most delighted to see you have brought new friends with you!”

” _ Bocchan _ ?” both Takao and Rei murmured under their breaths.

It was a surreal afternoon. Takao and Daichi were given the keys to their room, the room that was supposed to be shared by Takao and Kai instead, but it couldn't be helped now. Either way, Rei and Max were a little glad they didn't need to share a room with the duo that not only had the habit of snoring in common, but also sleeping in ridiculous positions and kicking others off the bed. Max and Rei had often shared a room while traveling around during the world championships, anyway, and were used to it.

But never had they stayed in a room this luxurious. Or, more precisely, Rei hadn't. Frankly, he was a bit overwhelmed by it... and by the single twin bed in their room. It wasn't the first time they would be sleeping in the same bed, but it sure was the first time it wasn't out of necessity because there weren't enough beds for the whole team. And... it  _ was _ the first time in years.

Rei now came to realize, this was what he had overlooked when agreeing to this idea. The tips of his pointed ears felt a bit hot when he thought back to the ordeal under Takao's bed the other day.

But Max seemed unfazed by all of this. He chipperly invited the others to go check out the onsen springs with him. Rei declined the offer, saying he would go take a look around on his own later.

”I feel like going on a walk in the park first. You don't need to wait for me.”

”Somehow I saw that coming,” Max said in good humor, ”you never get in the water with us, after all.”

* * *

And so the day had passed. Max returned to the room a couple of hours later, after a good long soak under the brilliant setting sun, and a dinner sponsored by the inn afterwards. He had figured that Rei had gone to the onsen meanwhile, so he brought some food for him to the room. Max was hoping Rei would come back before it went cold.

So he waited, and he waited, and waited some more. And then he waited just a bit longer still. After a good long while of rolling around in the bed doing crossword puzzles, Max finally heard Rei's footsteps behind the door. As Rei stepped in, he had his hair wrapped in a towel and wore a troubled expression.

”What took you so long??” Max asked, hanging his head upside down over the ledge of the bed and absorbing the weird sight of Rei's towel-wrapped head. ”You haven't eaten yet, have you?”

”I tried to keep my hair out of the water,” Rei explained while leaving the slippers he wore to the bath at the door, ”but it got wet anyway, so I washed it, and apparently, as high class as this place is, they keep the hair dryers here in the rooms.”

_ Hair problems! _ Max thought in delight.

”And no, I haven't eaten yet,” Rei finished his reply. ”And now I really have to dry this thing up or I'll never be able to go to bed.”

Max rolled over to his stomach excitedly. ”Can I do it?” he asked sheepishly. ”Let me dry your hair.”

Rei blinked, then gave a slow shrug. ”I guess. But why?”

”Because I've been waiting for you for an eternity, and now you're finally here and you should  _ eat _ and I will do your hair for you.” Max had clearly already made his mind about it, and took a determined hold of the hair dryer he had used himself earlier.

Their room – which, for such a Japanese-style inn, was surprisingly Western furniture-wise – came with a spacious balcony, so they seated themselves there for convenience. Rei unwrapped the towel, letting his mess of a hair fall down. The wrap had made the wet hairs lump together in wavy patterns, and there was just  _ so much of it _ .

Max began his task boldly, starting from the roots as Rei assigned him, combing through the hair with his fingers as he moved downwards the length of the hair, then back up, and down, and up, and down. They mostly sat in silence, as neither felt like shouting over the racket the blow dryer was already making; Rei was amused, yet admittedly a little enchanted, by how devotedly Max seemed to concentrate on this mundane task. It wasn't perfect, but Max did try his best. The sensation of the warm air and Max's fingers running through his hair was surprisingly relaxing to Rei, and so he sat there contently, enjoying it.

The evening was pleasantly warm, yet dry. They spent a long while on the balcony, and the dampness began to gradually fade away. They were still messy in form, but as Max ran his fingers through the dark strands of hair, they felt pleasantly soft to touch. Was Rei's hair always this soft? Maybe the onsen had done its magic.

”I think I'm done!” Max finally said, putting the blow dryer away. He wiped his own forehead with the back of his hand. ”Phew. Well, brushing comes next, right?”

Surprised, Rei turned to look over his shoulder. ”You want to brush it too?”

”Of course!”

”Even though drying alone took this long?”

”But it's fun! Except if you don't want me to?”

Rei did want him to. Frankly, he could have sat there for the rest of his life, enjoying the summer evening while Max tended to his hair. It felt especially nice whenever the other boy's fingers were gently stroking the back of his head. Blushing faintly, Rei pushed these thoughts away while Max was getting his hair brush from the room.

”I took my own comb too,” the blond said as he seated himself behind Rei again, ”for the frizz. The longest hair I've ever brushed is my Mama's, but...”

”It doesn't matter that much, really,” Rei interrupted Max's apologetic tone, ”I'll have it braided later, anyway.”

And so, Max first began working on combing through the worst tangles. He was the kind to enjoy doing things with his hands in general, so he found working on hair surprisingly much fun – but the main reason for his enjoyment was simply being in awe of Rei's amazing locks. Max found a strangely passionate resolve within himself to get them look silkier and softer than he had ever witnessed them being during the time they had known each other. Rei's hair, whenever not tied up, was always a bit frizzly, untame like a wild animal's fur. But his hair was this long and beautiful, and Max was determined to make it look great. After he was done with combing, he slid his left hand down the roots of the hair, supporting the trail of the brush as he ran it down the hair's length.

This was going to take a while.

”So...,” Rei began after another, shorter silence, finally able to speak up without any distraction. ”How come you know a place like this, anyway? The... The way the clerk person called you... What exactly...?”

Max made an amused humming noise. ”I told you, my family likes this place, so we've come here whenever Mama is in Japan. The staff still call me that 'cause we mostly came here when I was just a kid...”

Rei wasn't satisfied with this answer.  _ Bocchan _ was, for all he knew, a word used for the young of wealthy families, even the nobility. And the place was definitely high class...

”I never realized...,” Rei kept his pensive tone, ”but, Max... Your family is really rich, isn't it?”

Max stopped, then tapped the back of Rei's head with the flip side of the brush, just hard enough to get a tiny ”ouch” out of the other boy. ”Come on, money's like the worst topic you could ever pick, let's not talk about that. And what did you expect, anyway – Mama works for the PPB.”

It was true, of course, Rei now realized. It wasn't like Max lived like a high class kid, so it hadn't crossed his mind, even though he was obviously aware of Judy's high position. 

Instead of carrying on with the topic, Rei gave Max more directions with brushing after this exchange of words. The Mizuhara family's wealth was obviously not something Max cared to converse about. He, actually, much preferred to pretend it wasn't even there, because he really didn't care.

Nearly thirty minutes after they had started, Max was finally satisfied. He pulled away, looking at the entire length of Rei's hair, now flowing smoothly down his back and over his shoulders like a soft, dark veil. He gave a happy nod. ”I think it's done!”

”Almost.” Rei grabbed the brush on his own hand and hastily straightened his forelocks. They, too, usually looked untame and frizzly, and soon they framed Rei's face in their usual fashion again – as well as his tall, bare forehead that he tended to keep hidden.

But Max found it so very pleasing when Rei wasn’t deliberately hiding any of his features. Looking at him from about a meter and a half apart now, the long hair framing his bath cloak-wearing form, Max clapped his hands together in pleased excitement. Rei looked wonderful against the traditional scenery surrounding the inn, lush greenery in bloom painting the hill behind him in soft and brilliant colors, the inn's lanterns casting their golden light in the night's darkness, and Rei's form that seemed to be radiating a faint shine of its own. It was a rather artistic sight, and Max couldn't help getting lost in it for a while, not uttering a single word, still holding the brush tightly in his hand.

Rei ran his own hands down his hair a few times, marveling on how smooth it could actually feel for once. The hair didn't captivate him as effectively as it did Max, however, and he got caught in gazing at the pleasant scenery instead.

”This place is so quiet,” he said softly, ”it's so calm, I really like it. And it's such a beautiful night, too.” He turned to look at Max with a serene smile. ”Thanks for bringing me here. And for doing my hair, too.” He got up and went back to the room. ”Next time, I'll do something for you.”

Max was frozen in place for a few more seconds, until he jumped up as if woken up from a daze. ”No, but I wanted to do it...”

Rei, disregarding him upon reaching a mirror in the room, let out a surprised yell. ”What the hell, my hair hasn't looked like this since… Uh... Actually, it never has. What did you  _ do _ ?”

”It was probably the onsen,” Max explained, but smirked happily at the reaction. ”The spring water does wonders.”

”It looks so...” Rei's sentence faded away as he ran his fingers through the dark strands of hair with new-found appreciation.

”Beautiful, right?” Max said.

Rei opened his mouth, not sure what exactly he wanted to say, when all of a sudden, there was an energetic bang on the door.

”It's got to be Takao! Oh right, I think I said I'd drop by their room later, oops.”

It indeed was, and so Max left with Takao and Daichi, leaving Rei to get dressed and tie his hair in private. He couldn't do his usual braid on his own, so he settled with a simple, loose one that hung over his shoulder in front. He stayed in front of the mirror for a while longer.

* * *

When Max came back some time later, he discovered Rei in the bed. It was late by now, and Max decided to join him. Not wanting to disturb the other boy's sleep, Max obediently stayed on his own side of the mattress. He fell asleep almost immediately.

Rei, on the other hand, found himself lying wide awake in the dead of the night. There was a fluttering in his chest that kept him relentlessly alarmed.

He turned over, shyly checking whether the other boy had fallen asleep yet. Max had a habit of sleeping with the blanket pulled all the way up to his chin, but it was warm enough, he had more or less consciously tossed the blankets aside this time. He was sound asleep, his figure soothingly tranquil. They had left the balcony door slightly open, and a patch of moonlight was reaching for their bed through the gap, reflecting on the pale of Max's skin and giving it a soft, white gleam. His freckles, most prominent this time of the year, spread from one round cheekbone to the other like dark stardust against the moonglow of his skin. Rei reached out a hand, pulling aside the slightly curvy tuft of hair that drooped on Max's sleeping features.

Max's hair, too, was soft.

_ The spring water, huh... _ , Rei thought to himself, his consciousness drifting away little by little. He fell asleep with his arm still reaching out to the boy lying next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i die please remember me as that fucking idiot who wouldn't stop drawing and writing max doing rei's hair


	9. Clear Skies

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

Once they were back home, Max stated that they might have had the wrong approach with the whole hotel thing.

”You don't say,” Rei had commented.

”Don't give me that, your ideas have sucked at least as much.”

Rei couldn't deny. The disgraceful memory of hiding under Takao's bed was still fresh in his mind.

The weather was beautiful that day. The two of them, back to their usual brainstorming, were lying on one of the fields at the outskirts of the town; it was a spot of untouchable peace and quiet, and good for escaping the hordes of people on summer holidays buzzing around town.

Max and Rei were lying down adjacent to each other in an ocean of golden hay, their heads pointing at each other's. Max was staring lazily at the sky arching above, at the azure vastness save two strips of clouds floating somewhere very far away; they reminded him of cotton candy.

His hands bent behind his head, Max then made his statement as already mentioned, and Rei's response was as followed.

”But the principle of it wasn't bad,” pondered Max. ”If only Kai had come along.”

”Hmm,” hummed Rei. The sun was so bright, and hot; his thoughts had already drifted away from the subject at hand.

”The same idea can't be used twice, but maybe something resembling it, but something he won't pass...” Max carried on, frowning.

”Hmm,” hummed Rei again.

”It needs to have something to do with Beyblade... Something... Staying over... Sharing a room... Beyblade...”

”Hmm...”

”Sharing a.... Ah!” Max jumped up at once, yelling, the hay rattling around him. ”I got it!”

He turned around. Rei gave no response whatsoever. Not surprising – Rei seemed so used to Max's impulses, they hardly ever drew a reaction out of him – but disappointing nevertheless. After a pause, Max heaved himself closer, then bent over the other boy. Rei was lying still, eyes closed, a gentle smile on his calm face.

Cute, but still disappointing.

”Rei,” Max called out.

The voice had come from close enough this time; Rei slowly opened his eyes and found himself staring at Max's, a perfect match with the colour of the sky above.

”Yeah, let's do it,” he said, half asleep.

”I didn't even tell you the plan yet,” Max said, pouting theatrically – but only for a second, as the euphoria over his own idea was stronger than the desire to drag a reaction out of Rei. ”Let's go camping! We've got two tents, so we can make them share one, and if we call it a training camp, we'll get Kai to be there! This is so good, and it'll be fun too, and we can actually practice too, and... it's great! Oh, seriously, if I knew lying in the sun made you this lazy, we wouldn't have come here today.”

* * *

Max was correct, and soon they were on their way to a nearby camping location, far enough to feel like actual camping away from home. They got a ride from Max's father – as usual when they needed a short ride, since Takao refused to let his grandfather drive them anywhere.

It was a small camping site with no other people, possibly due to the place being full of old, run-down Bey stadiums; but to the BBA Team's purposes, challenging stadiums were all the better. The grounds around the site also served as a good platform for practice. In the middle, there was a small space for making a fire and sitting on a couple of logs while at it, and around two meters further, a tiny lake – or, rather, a pond, not wide enough to earn the title of a lake. Other than that, there wasn't much of anything at the camping site. Max's father had figured it would be enough for their two days long training camp.

The only one of them with any particular camping experience was Rei (disastrous attempts at training camps didn’t count), so they ended up relying on him for, well, everything. He rather single-handedly erected their tents and prepared a fire for them. While he was at the former, Max kept half helping, half pestering him, babbling in a low voice so the other two wouldn't hear.

”... I think it'd be good if we gave them as much space as possible, maybe being surrounded by nature already does its job, isn't it kinda romantic?? No?? Well  _ I _ think it is -”

Rei, to whom ”being surrounded by nature” was a very natural, very neutral state, said nothing. His idea of ”romantic” had taken shape in the span of two weeks, in the form of all the dramas he had binge watched. None of them involved any camping.

”- It'd be really good if we got them to spend the night together by the fire,” Max rambled on, glancing at the logs serving as benches, ”and, then imagine them going to their tent together – How big are these? Are they big enough for potential cuddling? I hope they are big enough. It's important.”

Max had all sorts of visions for their friends, but against his own expectations, Takao and Kai had taken the concept of a training camp very literally. They hardly sat down for a minute all day; Takao demanded a practice match after another, and another, and another; when it was time to eat, he stuffed his face without paying attention to anything but his food; then he was off to do some exercises that Professor had managed to hammer into his head, to the extent that they had become routine. Kai, on the other hand, didn't show much interest in anything but Blading. Did he ever? Maybe if there had been any wild animals nearby.

Max did, somewhat, get his romantic scene by the fire. Once the sun had set and it was late enough to fake going to bed early, he dragged Rei into their tent so they could leave Kai and Takao alone to roast some marshmallows together (it was Max's idea). The two of them took stance peeking through a narrow opening to see how the plan would unfold. Rei could feel Max vibrating in silent excitement next to him.

But that excitement paid off very slowly. Actually, it didn't pay off at all. They kept staring at Takao and Kai for a long while, but the only thing of interest they performed was Kai handing each marshmallow to Takao instead of eating any himself. Takao grabbed each piece of candy with his teeth from the stick Kai was using to roast them. It was sort of endearing, but it was all that happened. After a while, the fire began to die down, gradually vanishing and only leaving a pile of smothering cinders. Once the fire was gone, Takao announced that he was off to bed, and disappeared into the other tent. Kai stayed behind staring at the distance for a while, then simply walked off. Max, confused and very soon also furious, poked his head outside.

”Wha-- What the hell, where did Kai go?! Hey!”

Rei followed suit. Kai was nowhere to be seen anymore.

”Maybe he went for a walk in the forest,” Rei guessed. ”It's all nice and quiet out here.”

Max absolutely did not accept this.

”No! Why?! No!” He fell backwards on his back and rolled around in a childish fit of temper and raw disappointment. ”Why didn't it work?! Why didn't they kiss or something?? Did they see that we were watching, is that it?? I can't take it anymore!!”

Rei, wondering if he should – and if he  _ could _ – do something about this sudden tantrum, opened his mouth to say something; but then, Max suddenly stopped flailing around, lying flat without making a sound for a while. A few more moments later, he crawled inside his green sleeping bag.

”I'm going to sleep,” he said, morose. ”'Night.”

Rei wasn't sure what to make of this silly act, other than grin to himself a little. A part of him felt sorry for Max, albeit he didn't really know why he had had so much faith in this particular plan in the first place.

He was about to follow the example and prepared to lay down on his side of the tent; then, Max rolled on his back, brows knitted furiously, pouting at the tent's low ceiling. ”I'm too annoyed to sleep.”

”Just forget about it,” Rei said nonchalantly, taking off his headband. ”We can come up with something new tomorrow. I'll help.”

Max made a whiny noise. Then, he shed the sleeping bag and crouched his way out of the tent without a word. Surprised, Rei turned to glance after him.

Barefoot, Max walked past the remains of the fire, all the way to the pond on the other side. Then he stepped into the water. It didn't reach higher than his pale calves, allowing him to freely walk around the pond, kicking the dark water every now and then so it splashed all around him.

Rei stood up and stepped outside himself, taking a look around the camp site. It was positively eerie out; the closest lights loomed somewhere in the distance, and the light splashes of water were the only sounds cutting through the heavy silence hanging above their small abode. He turned to look at his friend again. Max had stopped stomping around. Maybe he had calmed down – Rei wondered if water had that sort of effect on Max, it being Draciel's element and all. He tiptoed his way to the pond, but didn't dare to dip his own feet in.

The two of them stood there in silence for a moment, both looking rather dumbfounded. The surface of the pond was rippling quietly at Max's feet, distorting the reflection of the night sky on it.

Taking notice of it now, Rei lifted his gaze to the sky. Although the town wasn't all that far away, the lack of man-made light of any kind nearby already had an effect on the view: the sky seemed deeper and darker than usual, revealing the hundreds and thousands of stars that shone like jewels down at them, and the moon was so full and bright and white, the two of them only just now noticed how they were basking in its light that kept the blackness of the night away, and they could see even while surrounded by the darkness.

Slowly, Max waded his way back to land. Dirt and grass was sticking to his bare feet and between his damp toes.

Rei still said nothing; he kept tilting his head back for a while, examining the sky with his golden eyes. Then, he took a couple of steps into taller grass next to the center of the camp, sat down, and leaned backwards until he was lying down on the ground on his back. He took the same lazy posture as he had had earlier that day, under bright daylight.

”The skies have been so clear today,” he said in a mellow tone. ”It reminds me of home.”

Max, initially surprised by his friend suddenly sinking to the ground, decided to do the same; he positioned himself adjacent to Rei, their heads pointing together once more. The ground was hard and prickly underneath, and Max's feet soon began to feel chilled. Something about looking at the night sky above felt different from the brilliant blue earlier. He didn't find its vastness calming; rather, it was a distant, uncanny void that was staring back down at him with its thousands of eyes.

Max blinked and shook his head a little. No, they were just stars, not eyes.  _ I must be tired, _ he thought to himself. He moved his head to talk to Rei, albeit he couldn't see the other boy from this angle.

”I really wonder where Kai went to, though. Maybe he's looking at the stars, too.”

There was no answer. Max waited for some quiet seconds, then heaved himself up and turned to look at Rei. His eyes were closed, again.

”Yeah,” Rei finally answered lazily. Max figured he hadn't even listened.

”Okay, this is not the place to fall asleep,” Max announced and dragged Rei up from the cold ground, ”at least move to the tent first.”

Rei moved himself just enough to do so, as did Max; neither of them bothered to change his clothes nor crawl into his sleeping bag as they crashed into the tiny tent, and they fell asleep sprawled on the tent floor, lying half on top of each other, and this was how they stayed all night until the next morning, when the sun climbed high on another clear summer sky.


	10. Lies

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Rei had an idea.

Professor and Hiromi had both returned to town (to, for some sadistic reason, enjoy the worst heat wave of the year back home), and as Daichi also came back from wherever he might have been, the entire posse was in town again. Takao was so happy about it, he could have burst. Nothing in the world was better for him than having all his friends by his side. Not even Beyblade, shockingly, albeit Blading with said friends was the culmination of his joy.

This was why Takao had decided that they would throw a party in their dojo, all gathered together. Which meant, he didn't even ask first; he just told everybody to be there, and to bring some food with them. And they did, because everybody adored Takao.

Hiromi was the most excited about a party. After spending a month lying on the beach and having nobody but her own family for company, she was actually eager to have some fun with the gang, and it was best to treasure that moment of not being burned out with the guys - yet. She even volunteered to bring drinks, so the boys took care of bringing snacks. There ended up being loads of food. More than anything, it turned out looking like a picnic at the dojo. Takao was enthralled. Knowing his passion for food well, Rei had made some Chinese buns himself and brought them along. Daichi was mostly interested in eating, and once he was done, he was out like a light on a pile of futons.

Max had brought playing cards which provided them entertainment for a couple of hours, after which someone unavoidably brought up Blading; given that they were a group of Bladers, it was bound to come down to this.

Hiromi was prepared. ”Nope, not today!” she bellowed as soon as the topic came up, jumping on her feet aggressively (they were sitting in a circle on the floor). ”You can Blade any time you want, but today's a real party night! And  _ this  _ is what you do at parties!” She raised an empty soda bottle, holding it like a trophy, a satisfied grin on her face. Takao's face, on the other hand, formed a question mark.

”'The hell are you saying now? And you know that that's empty, don't you?”

”You wanna do Spin the Bottle?” Max suggested, far less clueless than Takao – and the rest of them, anyway. The game wasn't as widely known in Japan.

”Why would you wanna spin it?” Takao kept asking, dumbfounded.

”It's the name of a party game,” Professor presented, being actually just as clueless but looking it up straight from Wikipedia on his laptop. ”Multiple players sit in a circle, with the bottle in the middle, and one of the players spins it. When the bottle stops, it'll point at someone in the circle, and...”

”We can do the 'truth or dare' version, because I sure as hell won't kiss any of you,” Hiromi said promptly, sitting back down and placing the bottle on the floor. As all the boys looked either confused or terrified – except Max, who was already familiar with the game – she continued: ”It's a popular version of the game, to kiss whoever the bottle's pointing at. But that's gross, so instead the one spinning the bottle's gonna ask the person whether they want a truth or a dare. If you pick 'truth', you're gonna have to answer anything the other person asks you. If you pick 'dare', the person will make you do something. You absolutely gotta answer or do the thing, otherwise it's no fun, got it?” Hiromi gave the boys around her another impish grin. ”And make it embarrassing. As embarrassing as possible. That's a rule!”

And this was the moment when Rei realized it was the perfect opportunity. Truths and dares? He had certainly seen a drama or two featuring people playing party games with passion, and it always came down to one thing – hooking up for romance. This was it. This was the opportunity to force those two to make a move!

Rei, fire in his eyes, turned to look at Max next to him. Max gave a look back, and the two nodded in silent, determined unison. They both knew what to do! Go for the kill at any cost!

”This is what girls consider fun?” Takao whispered to Kai, not daring to say it out loud in front of Hiromi. Kai sat with his arms crossed as usual, not showing much interest externally, but his eyes were curiously fixed on the bottle.

”Ah, I, uh, will just watch,” Professor said nervously, crawling his way out of the circle and hiding behind his laptop. Hiromi immediately grabbed his tie and pulled him back.

”Nope, no escaping! Everyone's participating!”

Except Daichi, who was was snoring somewhere in the futon pile.

Something awful was about to unfold.

”I'll show you how it's done.” Hiromi grabbed the bottle and gave it a spin. Six pairs of eyes followed it as it stopped, more or less pointing at Takao.

”Me?” he asked, also pointing his own finger at himself.

”Truth or dare?” Hiromi urged in response.

”Er... Truth?” Takao couldn't tell which option sounded worse to him, considering it was Hiromi asking. Both felt equally terrible, actually.

Hiromi was visibly disappointed. ”Tch, I wanted you to pick dare,” she mumbled, ”so I could have made you do something really stupid. Okay then. Would you rather snog everybody in this room, or quit Blading?”

”Wha--  _ What kind of question is that?? _ ” Takao growled, the look he gave her being so foul he could as well have looked at a rotten corpse covered in maggots.

”Just answer it,” Hiromi sighed, waving her hand as if shooing him away. ”Big deal. Which is it?”

”You know I wouldn't ever quit Beyblade!”

”So you'd snog everybody?”

”You just wanna laugh at me, you...!”

”It's just a game,” Max said, getting between the two as Takao grew ever so aggressive, ”it's not supposed to be taken seriously, Takao.”

”Nnnrgghh.” Takao made some more dissatisfied noises, mumbling what sounded like ”Just wait, I'm gonna get you for this” under his breath, but swallowed his fiery temper, simply taking the bottle. He spun it so hard it took a few seconds to stop. It now pointed at Max.

”Let's see who's gonna take this  _ seriously _ ,” Takao murmured before asking, ”Truth or dare?”

Max pressed a finger on his chin. ”Hmm... Maybe dare?”

”Hahaa!” Takao sat with his hands on his hips, a cheeky smile now appearing on his face. ”This is the moment I've been waiting for! Max- _ kun _ , talk like a delinquent for the rest of the night! No cute softie language! And any English is  _ banned!  _ Got that?!”

Not expecting such a dare in the least, Max's jaw dropped. ”What? But why?”'

”Because I say so! Say it, I wanna hear that innocent mouth of yours say  _ ore _ , do iiiiitt!”

”Have you been dreaming about this all along or what?” Professor commented nervously, still clutching his laptop in his hands. While pretending that he wasn't interested, he keenly listened to each and every word. ”Really, Takao??”

”You could have picked something more embarrassing,” was Hiromi's comment.

”Well, aren't you itching to hear it at all? A new Max shall be born right here, right now!” Takao said jubilantly.

”Fine,” Max complied, mostly confused rather than offended. ”I'll... try.” He deliberately cut the sentence short. The mere thought of replacing  _ boku _ with the stronger  _ ore _ was somewhat disturbing, but not something he couldn't do. It would make him sound like... the main character of an anime.

After a few seconds lost in thought, Max realised it was his turn to spin the bottle, and so he did. He now concentrated every inch of his willpower in the plastic bottle, with the mental image of sending telepathic waves down to it, telling it to land on either Kai or Takao, just do it, land on Kai or Takao, Takao or Kai...

Of course, it didn't. It stopped in front of Professor.

”Truth,” the smaller boy chose immediately, not willing to do anything barbaric for some stupid game.

”Blehh,” Max groaned in disappointment, ”I dunno... How bad's your eyesight... er... dammit??” He made the world's least intimidating delinquent.

”Oh, it's minus four in both eyes,” Professor answered obediently, then spinned his bottle on his turn. It stopped at Kai this time.

”Truth or dare?” asked Professor.

Kai stared downwards at the bottle, weighing out the options in silence. Then, he replied boldly, ”Truth.”

The atmosphere in the dojo suddenly grew tense. Everyone, without a doubt, was dying to hear Kai answer just about any sort of question invading his privacy, as he never actually did talk about himself. Takao was snickering under his breath; both Max and Rei, as well as Hiromi to be exact, looked like they were ready to shoot laser out of their eyes, so tense were their expressions.

”What's...,” Professor then said in a small voice, ”What's your... favorite dessert?”

” _ Professor! _ ” Hiromi yelled, betrayed, and dramatically fell backwards on the floor.

Rei buried his face in his hand, Max was screaming without sound.

Even Takao let out a noise. ”Out of all things, that's what you ask him??”

Kai let them savor the moment and took his time answering.

”Strawberry shortcake,” he then said bluntly, and nothing more, and reached for the bottle.

_ He just picked the first dessert he could think of _ , everyone thought, but said nothing.

The cork was now facing Hiromi. Kai looked at her, no emotion on his features whatsoever.

”Truth or dare,” he parroted everyone else, sounding as dull as ever.

”Dare!” she said, having twice the enthusiasm on Kai's behalf.

Kai seemed to think about it. The others, without a doubt, were all wondering what kind of thing would he actually tell a girl to do. He wouldn't go for something indecent, would he...?

”Have a match with me,” Kai then said.

”Wha...! Me? A match with  _ you _ ?!” Hiromi pointed at herself with both hands, eyes widening in shock. ” _ Me?? _ ”

”It doesn't have to be today. Or tomorrow. Get stronger, and then have a match with me.” Kai's tone was perfectly serious. He crossed his arms, and fell to his usual silence again, clearly having no interest to say anything more.

Hiromi looked like she had been punched on the face. But, in a way, she was a little honored to get such an invitation from Kai himself. Not that she had gotten very far with her Blading practice yet, but it was still something.

She inhaled sharply, fixed her posture, and grabbed the bottle again. It stopped to vaguely point at Rei's left foot. But a foot totally counted.

”Truth or dare?” Hiromi said unnecessarily loudly. She was ready to dump her tenseness on somebody. Oh, she was so ready.

”Truth...,” Rei answered, not sure if it was a good choice, but just like everyone else, he didn't want Hiromi to come up with anything too crazy for him to do.

Shooting out the question so casually, one could think she had rehearsed it all her life, Hiromi spat out, ”Have you jerked off to anybody in this room?”

”Huh?” Rei's face turned a brilliant crimson.

After a brief silence, Takao began howling in laughter, slapping his thigh with his hand. ”Hiromi, you’re a  _ riot!! _ ”

Professor, still pretending that he wasn't listening, sunk lower to hide himself completely behind his computer.

”Well, have you?” Hiromi persisted with such a straight face, everyone but Rei found it a bit admirable.

Rei, on the other hand, was enraged; but he understood by now that this was the very gist of this game, and he, too, refused to give Hiromi the triumph of getting exactly what she wanted. Despite the color of his face giving his feelings away, he took charge of his nerves to his best ability and uttered a calm ”No”. He avoided looking at anybody as he leaned forward to spin the bottle himself next.

It didn't stop at Takao nor Kai. It unexpectedly stopped at Max.

”Dare,” Max picked again. ”... Dammit.”

Rei kept looking at the bottle in front of them, his face still a little red, possibly from the rush of emotion from before, possibly for whatever his first thought for a dare was, who knows. ”Ah,” he then said, ”switch the delinquent talk to Kansai dialect. And use  _ ore-sama _ instead.”

”D'you derive some kinda pleasure from these speech dares?” Max asked, directing this at both Rei and Takao, who had snorted in unison at their friend's poor attempt at the dialect that sounded hopelessly goofy in their ears.

The amused mood was admittedly contagious, and Max was laughing at his stupid attempts himself as he spinned the bottle. It stopped at Hiromi, again. And she chose a dare, again.

”Hmm! Something for Hiromi-chan to do?” Max pondered aloud. He was a gentleman, so he didn't have any interest in teasing Hiromi to do anything silly. ”Well, how about having a match with me too? And do it before Kai, because he's scary, but I'm not.”

Hiromi huffed, but looked somewhat pleased again. ”Sure,” she said, ”I'll have a match... with this  _ ore-sama _ guy, that is!”

Everyone except Kai kept laughing whenever Max opened his mouth to blurt things out with an improvised accent, and even Kai might have laughed, if he ever actually did. But he did not.

Hiromi spinned the soda bottle, and it went back to Max, again.

”Truth!” Max said chipperly, for a change.

”Ahem!” Hiromi puffed her chest, excited for this opportunity to address the ever-so-innocent blond. ”Tell me, Max, do you like someone?”

This was, of course, the most cliché question anyone could ever ask during Spin the Bottle, thus very predictable, and Max knew it.

Everyone moved on to look at Max in anticipation. Hiromi was on fire, actually leaning a little towards the blond, so eager to hear the answer. Professor peeked from behind his laptop once he was sure nobody was paying him any attention. Rei found himself holding his breath a little.

”Well, sure I do,” Max replied after a moment of silence that he deliberately gave the others. ”Like... I love my Mama very much!”

Hiromi let out another disappointed shriek. ” _ God _ , you know what I meant!” She pinched Max's freckled cheek while mumbling under her breath, ”Hiding your true colors under that cute face, you're the slickest of them all, you...”

”Ow...,” Max wailed. While still in Hiromi's murderous clutches, he reached for the bottle.

It happened to stop at her once again, since, if it hadn't become clear enough already, this was the default track the bottle would follow without conscious effort to differ. She released Max, now making an angelic expression at him. Rubbing his aching cheek, he asked the usual, ”Truth or dare?”

”Dare,” Hiromi said right away. She, in fact, had decided from the very beginning that she wouldn't give the boys the pleasure to ask her awkward questions.

”Could you go get me a new soda, then?” Max said with a shrug. ”Saves me the bother of getting up.”

”You're awful at both this game and Kansai-ben,” Hiromi commented as she left her spot, to get a single soda can from the fridge. When the dare was done, she reached for the bottle.

She may or may not have schemed how to spin it this time, so it stopped at Rei, just like a few minutes earlier.

”Truth,” he decided firmly. He knew that if he picked dare, Hiromi would be absolutely relentless.

”Did you jerk off to  _ something _ this morning?” came Hiromi's question.

” _ Hiromi! _ ” half of the boys yelled in unison.

”Shut up!” she yelled in return. ”I asked Rei, not all of you! Unless you want me to? Well, did you??”

Rei gave a humorless laugh, less flustered this time around, but, upon careful inspection, the tips of his ears blazing red, ”Do you  _ really _ want to talk about this topic that badly?”

”You're nasty.”

”You're the one who asked.”

”So did you or did you not?”

”No.” Without another word, it was Rei's turn to spin the bottle.

Like this, the game continued for a long while. Professor got bombed with awkward questions whenever possible, Kai lost his scarf in a dare, Rei tied his hair up in two ponytails due to yet another dare, and Takao kept giving Max a worse time with speech-related dares until he could barely speak anymore. The boys were now giving it their all to avoid Hiromi's turn from coming, which in turn made her even more vicious when the bottle did stop at her. Takao made her draw on the sleeping Daichi's face with a permanent marker. The whole evening was chaos.

No matter how hard Rei tried, he couldn’t get the bottle to stop at either Takao or Kai on his turn, not even once. His attempts to concentrate his spiritual powers - whether or not he had any to begin with - on the soda bottle were all in vain. Rather, it felt like the bottle kept mocking him, bouncing any and all of his brain waves right back at him.

Another spin of Hiromi's stopped at Rei, and nobody was surprised anymore. ”What is it this time?” he asked, knowing that Hiromi wanted a truth, anyway.

Hiromi didn’t yield to his condescending tone. ”Would you suck -”

But that was when the dojo's door was slammed open, and a yell boomed throughout the entire building, drowning out Hiromi's question, Daichi's snoring, and any other noise whatsoever.

”Gentlemen! And the lady! And Takao. I have arrived to provide some vigor to your meager festivity with my cassette collection!” It was Takao's grandpa, dressed in his Hawaiian shirt, with an old-fashioned cassette player under his arm and a box full of cassettes under the other.

”Oh, fuck off, Gramps!” Takao groaned. But it was too late.

”I have brought a number of prodigious gems with me! Let's jam it to some Folk Crusaders, kids! Now this is the stuff, or whatever you youth say!”

And so, Spin the Bottle came to a halt – which most probably only saddened Hiromi – and they were forced to listen to popular hits from the 70's for the next hour or so. By the time Takao finally managed to throw his grandfather out, it had gotten late enough that they decided to prepare the futons for the night (the music had woken up Daichi who, for whatever reason, found the retro music absolutely amazing).

* * *

Whether the night had been a success was debatable. It was not for Rei, who had terrible luck in his attempts as usual and failed to get a single chance to make Takao or Kai do anything. It was a moderate success to Hiromi. It was great to Takao who enjoyed making fun of Max's speech patterns so very much. And...

The lights were out, everyone had crawled to their own futons, and silence finally filled the dojo. They had prepared blankets for everyone, but the summer night being warm enough, most of them simply cast the blankets aside.

Except for Max. Hiding under the covers, he was discreetly browsing his phone, smiling to his pillow alone.

Takao, who was on his left side, rolled over to literally stick his nose in. ”What're you grinning at? Whatcha doing?”

Max quickly flipped the phone, to hide a gallery-full of (mostly blurry) photos of Rei's twintails, all of which he had taken while the others had been preoccupied with the chaotic party game.

”Nothing. Good night.”


	11. Boxes

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

Or, technically, he had had an idea; but instead, he found himself dangling in mid air, stuck from his waist on a window frame.

One day, Professor came to the others with news from the BBA's ever-so-spontaneous chairman. This time, out of the blue as usual, Daitenji had decided to organize a masquerade (or so he called it), and he absolutely wanted his precious team to participate. To everyone's surprise, it had nothing to do with Beyblade. Yet.

He called it a masquerade, but all he required was for everyone to wear a costume. Apparently, matching outfits were highly encouraged and the best would be awarded. Frankly they didn't want to know if this was Daitenji's idea, too.

”Let's get matching costumes for Takao and Kai,” Max decided immediately, whispering to Rei whom he had pulled aside from the rest. ”Let's make them shine and win the whole thing!”

”You think Kai will be there?” Rei said, knitting his brows. ” _ And _ wear a costume?”

”It'll be fine,” responded Max, ”I'll bribe him to do it by letting him play with our puppy for a week.”

”You have a dog?”

”No, but Kai doesn't know that. Just play along. The puppy's named Max Junior.”

”Oh,” said Rei.

”Also, I know where we'll get the costumes.”

And so, later that day when everyone scattered to go home, Rei followed Max to the Mizuhara residence, as he often had lately. Max led him through the Beyblade hobby shop, past the rows of stadiums and trinkets to the far end of the room. There were two doors: one looking like a regular closet, the other one a much sturdier door made of metal; the blots of rust displayed its age, and it had a clasp instead of a regular lock.

”This is the storage room,” Max introduced as he walked up to this very door, ”my parents have stored all kinds of junk here since forever. Whenever I've been bored, I've gone through the stuff – well, without asking them – and I remember there being several boxes of old costumes there too! They could be handmade by Papa, or maybe patched up by him or something, I dunno, he has a lot of weird hobbies.”

Through the heavy door, they arrived into a surprisingly spacious room, or rather, what would have been spacious if it wasn't filled with shelves and boxes of all sorts, all the way up from the ceiling down to the floor. It really was the very definition of  _ junk _ ; Rei could tell a lot of it was from the hobby shop, what with all the old, no longer usable Beyblade tools and parts, but apart from those, there was a lot of regular... junk as well. It looked like a garage. One that hadn't been cleaned in twenty years. There were box-loads of screwdrivers and random metal parts and cables of all shapes, but also folders, shoes, non-Beyblade sports equipment, an old television... Something that looked like a freezer...

”This place is a dump,” Rei commented.

”Papa has a bad habit of never throwing anything away,” Max explained as he kicked some dusty bottles out of his way. ”Apparently he thinks it'll prove useful one day. It never does, just saying. Hmm, I think it was those boxes there.”

_ Those boxes there  _ couldn't have been more vague to Rei, who saw dozens of boxes wherever he looked. But somehow Max seemed to know what he was doing, and sure enough, after heaving aside a couple of heavy cardboard boxes, he revealed some large crates with “ _ Costumes _ ” written on them in scribbly handwriting, probably daddy Mizuhara's. That was strangely convenient, but Rei said nothing.

”Let's see!” Max chipperly opened the crate closest to him. ”Well, these are just dresses, maybe we won't go there. Or  _ will _ we?”

Rei followed Max's example and opened the next box. ”These are... What the hell are these?” Confused, Rei lifted a rag of colorful fabric for showcase. ”It's, uh...”

”It's a banana, obviously,” Max stated, apparently giving up on the dresses and moving on himself.

”Why would anyone ever want to dress as a banana??”

”I dunno, to make a fruit salad? Okay, what's this here...”

In this fashion, they drew out dozens of costumes, some bizarre and completely useless, some looked like cheap kabuki theater replicas, some had American themes like superheroes – well, needless to say, Max's father had a thing or two for the States. There were fairies and cowboys and animals and all of it was pretty ugly, most of them old rags from decades past.

Some thirty minutes passed. Too indulged in the marvels of the boxes to notice anything else, Max and Rei both jumped when a loud, metallic knock boomed all the way from the storeroom's entranceway. It wasn't hard to deduce that the door had been slammed shut.

”Hey...!” Max yelled, jumping up to his feet. ”Didn't they hear that we're still here?? But I didn't hear Mama or Papa out there, either.” He scurried to the door to take a look, but when he pressed the handle that opened the clasp outside, it didn't budge.

”Come on...”

He kept trying, pushing the handle with all his strength. Rei gave it a try as well, but he couldn't move it an inch either. Max, only slightly mesmerized by Rei's arms as he strained himself to get the door open, shook his head and let out a whine.

”I guess this old piece of crap is just busted now. We're stuck...”

They could have resorted into blasting the entire door away with their Beys, but of course, it just so happened that they had left them in Max's room earlier, how mysteriously inconvenient.

Max turned around to look at the messy room again. ”If we wanna get out any time soon, the window's our only choice.”

”You mean... _that_ window?” Rei asked, throwing a doubtful glance up to said window, located near the ceiling. Not only was it some two meters away from the floor, it was too narrow for a person to pass through. It led to the training room, not outside; no natural light got into the storage whatsoever.

”Yeah,” Max confirmed.

They couldn't reach high enough as they were, so they moved some useless junk aside and heaved one of the sturdy crates below the window. And so, Rei first climbed on top of the crate, then helped Max climb on top of his shoulders. As the taller boy stood straight, Max's arms just reached to open the window and grab the wooden frame. He took a good hold of it and pulled himself up, sticking himself out as far as he could without losing his grip on the frame.

”Man, they're not here,” he groaned, eyeing the training room below him. Seeing it from a different angle as usual was fascinating, but this was hardly the situation to stop to admire such things. ”Papa! Mama! Are you there?! You locked us in the goddamn storaaaage! Heeey!”

Rei, in the meanwhile, didn't have much else to do than wonder why this had happened – and to stare at Max's butt, but never mind that detail. Max had pulled himself so far up, he no longer reached Rei's shoulders, so the rest of his body was merely dangling in mid air above Rei.

It's not like he meant to stare or anything, but. He turned away in an attempt to redeem his dignity.

Max's yells didn't seem to reach anybody. ”Jeez, where did they  _ go _ ?” He gave a sigh and hung his head, along with his arms. Looking directly down made his stomach turn a little – the window was up really, really high. Had the ceiling always been so high in the training room? Apparently, it had.

”I think I want down from here,” he said.

But, when he tried to push his way back, he found that he couldn't. His body was squeezed tightly inside the window frame. Max frowned. Sure, the window was pretty narrow, but so was he. Or so he had thought. Maybe forcing his upper body through it had not been the brightest of ideas. Maybe he should eat a little less mayonnaise.

”Um... R... Rei...,” Max pleaded, kicking his legs that were dangling in mid air.

”Need help?” Rei asked, simultaneously amused and just a tad concerned by Max's panicked tone.

”I think I'm stuck...”

”What can I do about it, though?” Max had been standing on Rei's shoulders; with only the other half of his body sticking from the wall, Rei couldn't reach further than Max's legs.

”Just do  _ something _ ,” Max commanded while trying to squirm his way out.

Rei didn't have much choice. He grabbed Max's legs and pulled. Then he pulled again, more forcefully. And then a third time, he pulled hard.

Max slid backwards out of the window at once. Yelling in surprise, he was flung into free fall for one hair-raising second; Rei caught him, grabbing his waist the best he could; but in doing so, Rei didn't watch his own feet, and reeled, and fell backwards; and then they were going down.

A striking silence following the enormous crash pierced the storage room, a cloud of dust floating around, landing on the two of them, sprawled across the floor.


	12. Agony

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Rei had an idea.

So they were lying on the storage room floor, in the middle of mountains of junk and boxes and costumes and who knows what else. It took Max a moment of staring at the dirty ceiling to realize he was currently crushing the inanimate Rei under his weight, Rei's face buried somewhere in his lower back, and as this dawned on him, Max immediately jumped aside with a squeak.

”Are you okay??” he asked, noting a trickle of blood streaming out of Rei's nose. His golden eyes looked weirdly cloudy.

”Yeah,” Rei said in a rough voice, ”yeah, I'm fine. No. Wait. I don't know. I think it hurts. Yeah, it hurts. Kinda hurts bad. Ow.”

”Are you serious? What hurts??” Max kept asking, actually alarmed now. ”Can you get up?”

”My shoulder. Wait.” Rei took a deep breath and lifted himself up from the dusty floor, supporting himself on his elbows. He stayed like that for a few of seconds staring at nothing, then rolled over, threw up on the floor and fainted.

* * *

Kicking the door didn't help. Max had resorted into banging it repeatedly with an old baseball bat until one of his parents finally came to open the lock, extremely confused by the sound, worried that it was their pipes exploding or some such. The racket was unbelievably awful and left Max's own ears ringing for a while.

Judy examined Rei briefly, suspecting a concussion plus a dislocated shoulder, and the parents offered to take him to the hospital. Once Max had finished telling what had happened, her response was to order her son on a diet.

It was serious, but not terribly so. Rei woke up soon, and chances were the shoulder could be reset at the hospital. But Max, he was startled out of his wits; Judy had to pet his hair for half an hour to calm him down while the doctors were doing their doctor-like things to Rei, whatever those things were, Max didn't really know. He wasn't the kind to overreact, but he also hadn't ever sent another person to the hospital before.

”I'm sorry,” was the first thing he said once a nurse let them enter the room Rei was in, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed and coy. ”This was my stupid idea's fault.”

”Don't say that,” Rei comforted him, sitting on his bed, wearing a shoulder immobilizer and holding a cold pack against his head with his healthy arm. ”It was an accident.”

”An accident caused by me.”

”That's not like you. You look more hurt than I am – I'm fine, see?”

Max didn't really see it. Rei had probably been given anesthetics.

”You won't be able to move your hand for a while, you know,” he said grimly. ”No Blading, no training, no nothing.”

”I'm good at healing fast, it won't take the whole summer. Moreover, Max,” there was a sudden lunatic gleam in Rei's eyes and he leaned a bit forward, ”this is  _ it _ . We can use this!”

”What's what?” Max asked, a tad cautious.

”An injury! To get those two together! One of them getting hurt and the other taking care of him, that would be the perfect scenario, there's nothing that possibly wouldn't work about it!”

Max was now concerned about the amount of anesthetics they had pumped into his friend. ”What the hell are you saying,” he blurted, ”that I should tackle Takao or Kai in the stairs or something?”

”No, no, there's no point if it's not subtle,” Rei reasoned as if there was nothing else wrong about this plan at all. ”But don't do anything too serious, I don't want to share a hospital room with one of them. I know you can pull it off somehow.”

Max was absolutely against this ridiculous idea, but he couldn't bring himself to argue when Rei was being patched up because of  _ his _ idea. Besides, Rei wasn't wrong; he could see this idea working particularly well with getting Kai to make a move, actually much better than most of their previous plans. But, still, Max believed Rei's sense of judgement to be a bit hazy at the moment, so this idea couldn't ultimately be anything but bad. He blamed all the nonsensical romantic dramas and novels that seemed to spawn all of Rei’s worst ideas these days.

”Okay,” he said for some reason anyway.

* * *

Rei had to stay at the hospital for further monitoring because he wasn't quite as ”fine” as he believed himself to be; Mr. Daitenji postponed the BBA masquerade party, because having the entire team present was apparently extremely personal to him – or maybe he just babied Rei the most and was particularly concerned about him.

Max was sitting by the riverbank early next morning, staring down at his bare feet soaked in the cool water. He hadn't slept well. Even without blaming himself, he felt deeply distraught; as if something was crushing his insides, he felt physically ill and a little suffocated. It was strange. Max was level-headed and usually in good control of his nerves, but now, he felt as if some unknown force was keeping him from taking charge. He knew Rei would be alright, and most likely out of the hospital in a few hours, and accidents happened and it could have been much worse, and – so why – why couldn't Max stop being so shaken by it, or thinking about it, or missing Rei when they weren't even apart in any way that really differed from usual, it didn't make sense and yet, his heart felt so heavy.

He found water comforting, and watching its steady flow calmed his muddled mind a little. Max lifted his right foot, then splashed it back down. The river... Maybe he could use the river, and the steep fall before it – he knew Takao wouldn't be that fazed from it, but fazed enough for the desired effect. Max put a hand in his pocket, pulling Draciel out, and gave it a thoughtful look. Yes, this would be easy to pull off with his high precision shoot.

And so Max called the others, proposing practice matches by the river (the weather was great, there weren't other Bladers present that noon, and other such viable reasons). It was important for the plan that only Takao and Kai were present, and luckily it worked out so, conveniently none of the others had been loitering around Takao's house like they often did.

As stupid as the plan was, having something to do improved Max's mood as he set up a careful stage by the river. His own wittiness pleased him, and by the time the usual targets of their shenanigans arrived, Max was acting like his usual self, albeit he was forcing some of it, but successfully. He was hoping they wouldn't mention Rei.

Max waited for the perfect moment: him fighting against Takao, Takao standing a perfect distance away from the river with his back towards it. Takao was doing the countdown; this was Max's chance, he got ready to fire a perfect shoot, he took a careful aim,

but shaken as he still felt inside, it was harder than usual to focus and he missed by a tiny margin,

and Draciel zoomed towards a tree next to them, and instead of hitting its mark and nudging Takao just hard enough to make him fall backwards and splash down to the river, it bounced off the tree at full speed, bounced back in the wrong angle, hit Dragoon that hadn't even landed on the stadium yet, and somehow, made it ricochet right in the middle of Max's own face.

Nothing about it went as planned. All Max did was cause a second nosebleed that day, for himself. Takao was first and foremost concerned about Max, but Kai seemed a little impressed with such a nonsensical, powerful shoot. He had no idea why Max did it, but it had pleased him.

Max sighed, then sighed again. Feeling utterly defeated, and tired, and disappointed in the most ridiculous of ways, he turned around and walked away from the stadium.


	13. Confusion

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. Thus, Max had an idea.

The said idea being the masquerade party, two weeks after Max had crushed Rei's arm by crashing on him butt first, and while Rei was still banned from doing any sports, the shoulder had healed enough for the party. As long as he didn't do anything stupid. Max needed to remind him not to, hoping it would work this time.

Their options with the costumes were more limited than they would have liked, due to many of them being in such poor condition. They needed something they'd think even Kai would agree on wearing, nothing too ridiculous, something rather casual but effective that could go with another costume. Rei suggested a simple ghost – it only required a white kimono and a hitaikakushi, the forehead ornament. Max was delighted by this suggestion; a passive, deadpan ghost fit Kai better than well. He wondered if they could make him wear a long black wig with it. Probably not. Max considered giving him Max Junior for two weeks.

For Takao, they decided on a matching horror theme: a very Halloweeny vampire costume, but since not many people knew about Halloween in their town (Rei had only heard about it on his travels), it served as a generic spooky outfit. Max's description of some basic traits of Western vampires left Rei in silence for a moment, and while Max was going through the box for fitting accessories, from the corner of his eye, he saw Rei touching his own sharp fangs with an expression of concern.

They had agreed to pick costumes for Hiromi and Professor as well. There was an abundance of dresses in Max's father's collections, but wanting to use something funnier, he picked a set with Super Mario and Princess Peach. (Rei had no idea who they were.)

And then, only Max and Rei themselves were left.

Choosing what to wear wasn't simple, as they didn't want to stand out more than their friends, and on the other hand, it didn't feel quite fair that they would be choosing their own outfits while nobody else got to choose theirs. That's why they asked Max's father to pick for them.

They realized it was a mistake as soon as Tarou picked a set of kindergarten uniforms – a blue boys' one, and a pink girls' one, complete with yellow hats and shoulder bags. In thrice the real size, of course.

”These are adorable!” he reasoned with a hearty laughter. ”And they haven't been used, so they're in better condition than most of the costumes! This brings back memories...”

”Uh,” Max rushed to interrupt, not wanting to hear about these particular memories, ”are you sure, Papa...? Er, I think, I think we could wear something cool like--”

”You asked me, and this is what I say. Wear them! You will look great! You take the pink one, Max – wait until your mommy sees this, I need to fix our camera for this right now...”

Max and Rei, who had hand-picked the others' outfits to their own liking, had no place to complain.

* * *

Everything went surprisingly smoothly. They got Kai to agree to wear the ghost costume, possibly because it was completely effortless – Rei wanted to think that Kai felt a little sorry for him and his hurt arm and had agreed with their suggestion so easily because of it (this was most likely not the case, and Max knew it had more to do with the dog that didn’t actually exist, but he didn’t have the heart to say it to Rei) – and Takao adored his. He demanded fittingly spooky face paint for both himself and Kai. Hiromi agreed to do it; she was pretty good at it.

Her and Professor's reaction to the video game costumes was milder than Max expected; but on the actual day of the party, when everyone showed up at their assigned meeting place fully dressed up, something had definitely gone queer with them. First of all, Professor had decided to not attend the party after all with whatever excuse (the real reason was that the costumes had inspired him to take his Super Famicom out, and he was much too immersed in playing games to dress up as Mario himself); thus he was unexpectedly replaced by Daichi. But Daichi wasn't wearing the Super Mario costume; Hiromi had taken it, complete with fake moustache under her tiny nose. Daichi appeared in the pink dress that was several sizes too big for him. It was a disaster.

But Daichi aroused only as much hilarity as did Rei and Max themselves. Their kindergarten uniforms were ridiculous. Hiromi thought they were adorable. She wanted to take pictures immediately, while ignoring her own dandily clad costume partner with such care it was almost impressive.

They made their way to the main BBA building, the scene of the masquerade. To Max, it resembled going trick-or-treating in October, but it was August and rather hot out, and what he was after was some action between his friends, not candy. Well, maybe it did count as eye candy of sorts.

Max found himself missing Halloween whenever he was staying in Japan. On the other hand, he was way too old for trick-or-treating by now, a sad fact that helped him bury these nostalgia-infused thoughts and focus on the present.

”So,” Rei whispered to Max as they entered the building with the rest, ”what’s our plan, though?”

”Try to make them stand out as a great couple as well as possible,” Max mumbled back. ”The chairman said that the best matching outfits win a prize. It's such a good way to bring them together! It's, like, literal proof that they're a match made in heaven!”

Rei nodded vigorously. The creepy costumes did look great on their friends. He was confident they were the best looking pair in the party, even without seeing the rest first.

All of the town's Bladers were free to join, and as they stepped inside a hall that was usually used for Beyblade practice, it was already full of kids in all sorts of costumes. The idea had sounded strange at first, but they had to admit that it was pretty fun, actually. It was an opportunity for Bladers to get to know each other outside a stadium, and everyone's outfits were so clever (it only made Rei and Max feel worse about theirs), and tables of food had been prepared so everyone could eat as much as they wanted, and there were games and all sorts of things there. Daitenji's ideas weren't always only bad.

Max and Rei weren't concerned with any of this, however. They had an important mission!

The four of them (and, well, the rest to an admittedly smaller extent) were the pride and joy of Mr. Daitenji, and he didn't waste an opportunity to show them off, and all the younger Bladers were their avid fans. The smallest ones seemed genuinely scared of the ghostly Kai, but the outfits obviously had an impact. Max made it a point to loudly announce how good the two looked together every now and then. Rei suggested making the two the exemplary stars in many of the featured games to Daitenji; for the chairman, it was easy to keep dragging his two favorites into one  game after another, including a three-legged race that was held outside. Takao and Kai were hugely popular, and Rei and Max were more than content with everyone being so on board with making the two do all sorts of things together. Rei and Max, on the other hand, kept a close eye on their friends, using some thick branches for disguise to hide themselves from immediate view. It worked particularly well outside. Inside, not so much, but they kept sneaking around in unison nevertheless. Wherever Takao and Kai went, Max and Rei made sure to follow their trails, and spy on them, and maybe bring them a bit closer together when possible. This plan felt like such a success, Max didn't even have the time to worry about the imaginary dog he had promised to Kai for doing this.

When the sun was already hanging low and the day was approaching its end, Daitenji finally announced what the two had eagerly been waiting for: the best dressed pair of the masquerade would receive a prize...!

”What exactly is that prize, though?” Rei wondered aloud. All the people present had formed a crescent shape audience in front of Daitenji, who was standing in the front pulling his white moustache, looking so thoroughly self-content.

”It'd be good if it was something they could share,” Max said with a soft grin.

Daitenji cleared his throat, then announced:

”The winners I have chosen... are Rei-kun and Max-kun! Congratulations! Such commitment in perfectly complementary outfits! Such care in detail! Such coordinated action from the two of you all day! Truly, you two deserve it!”

Everyone was clapping and cheering, except for Rei and Max. Rei had gone pale; Max's grin had frozen into an uncomfortable grimace. They turned to look at each other, very slowly.

”What?” said both.

* * *

The prize had turned out to be their weight in chocolate. It was a lot of chocolate. Rei, in fact, did not eat chocolate at all, so he gave his to Takao and Hiromi who had been yelling in jealous unison when the prize was announced; and Max, well, he ended up giving all of his to Kai, as an apology that the puppy named Max Junior had been a lie. Kai took the chocolate, and although it was somewhat difficult to tell any different from his usual demeanor, Max had a feeling that he systematically avoided talking to either of them for the next couple of weeks.


	14. Preparation

Max and Rei were determined to get Takao and Kai together. But, they were out of ideas.

Summer was almost over, and none of their plans had borne any fruit, at least not in the desired way. There had been no development of any sort between Kai and Takao whatsoever. This is how it looked like to the two of them.

In their town, the official marker of the end of the summer was the local matsuri festival, organized every year on the last Saturday of August. It was a traditional community-driven celebration, which in practice meant that every year, the same households were fixed to make certain preparations that they had always done; each was in charge of one aspect, be it one of the food booths, one of the various traditional games, fireworks, organizing the parade, anything.

The Mizuharas, like their neighbors in the same block, were in charge of decorating the main street for the festival. Since Rei had pretty much become their permanent guest this summer, he was glad to help. He had never participated in organizing an event like this and found it a wee bit exciting.

So they spent an entire afternoon in the Mizuhara residence living room, he and Max, crafting paper lanterns for the matsuri. Max’s parents had assigned them this task, deeming it suitable for Rei whose shoulder they were still concerned about, and felt a certain degree of adult responsibility for. Rei, who had no parents, found this a bit daunting. He had, however, nothing against crafting the lanterns with Max.

”We're running out of time,” Max said, lying on his back on the floor, doing some absent-minded painting on one of the lanterns. ”Once everyone's back to school and you're off to China, it'll be hopeless to try to get them together.”

Rei nodded. He was attaching strings to the lanterns so they could be hung from each other as a chain. ”I think... The festival might be our last chance.”

”Do you have any ideas?”

”No, not really. But if we got them to go together, it'd make a pretty good date, wouldn't it?”

Max set the painted lantern aside to dry. ”Chances are Kai's not coming, though. I don't think he would. And he wouldn't believe anything I say anymore, after that puppy thing.”

”Definitely not.”

”I think the only sure-fire way to lure him out would be Blading. But nobody around here wants to challenge him. Except... Takao, I guess...”

Rei rubbed his own forehead, thinking. ”I wonder if we could get him to do an exhibition match with Takao at the festival. Then they'd naturally be together there, too.”

”I dunno, I don't think Kai likes that kind of thing.”

They hummed in troubled unison.

* * *

They kept throwing wild, yet defective ideas at each other all afternoon; poisoning Kai's food so he'd have to stay in bed with Takao nursing him, but they wouldn't get close enough to anything Kai put in his mouth; lying about someone strong coming to the matsuri, but Kai would slaughter them once he found out the truth; stealing his scarf and putting it on display at the matsuri... But, again, they would be killed before they got away with it.

They didn't come to any conclusion, and then, the day was over.

”I think,” Max finally said when the lanterns were all done, ”I'll talk to Takao tomorrow.”


	15. First Kiss

In the afternoon on the festival day, Max headed over to Takao's place. He found himself ominously nervous; his feet felt heavier on each step he took down the path he had walked so many times before, never feeling quite like this before.

What should he say? How direct should he be? Why did it feel this awkward in the first place; all he was going to do was talk to his best friend... Just talk, like they always did. He wasn't off to set any traps for Takao like he had done several times already this summer, and yet, he felt several times more nervous entering the Kinomiya household this time around.

Takao was alone – everyone else was busy preparing for the festival. Thank God.

Takao, of course, didn't question Max appearing at his door. Being all too self-aware of his particular reason for doing so, Max felt a little guilty as he followed Takao into his room, casually as ever.

Max let things flow as they always would for a while. They watched some new Blading videos people had uploaded online. Takao's grandpa made an appearance and they bickered over the festival preparations for a bit. Pinged by the topic, Max decided that the festival was a convenient conversation opener.

”You're going, right?” he presented his innocent question as Takao's grandpa left the room, ”To the festival.”

”Eh, I dunno,” Takao said lazily, leaning against the wall while sitting on his bed. ”It's the same thing every year, I'm kinda tired of it at this point.”

”Well,” Max hesitated, feeling his heart beat a little faster upon finally tackling the subject, ”what about going with Kai, though?”

”Ehh? Hmm...” Takao scratched his head. ”I don't think Kai'd like it... There's so many people everywhere...”

Max sighed, then promptly sat so he was facing Takao on the bed. It was time to get real.

”When are you two gonna get it on, anyway?? I mean – I've just kinda been waiting for it since forever, you obviously make a good pair.”

”Waiting for what?” Takao asked, raising his brows.

”Ugh – well, you know – your first kiss or something??” Max hadn't meant to put it that bluntly, but it just sort of escaped his mouth before reason followed.

”Eh?” Takao stared at his blond friend with a dumbfounded expression that very much had _ Are you an idiot? _ written all over it. ”First kiss? Man, we did that ages ago already.”

A pause. There was definitely a pause in Max's brain. An ice cold sensation spread in his head; then, he felt as if he'd just been punched in the stomach. His words came out with an uncharacteristic stutter as he said, ”Wha-What do you mean?”

”Shit, Max, didn't we ever tell you?? Me and Kai have been together since forever.” Takao tilted his head pensively. ”Well, I guess we never did really talk about it, I mean, Kai's not really the kind to talk about stuff to other people – and I know he appreciates his privacy, too. But I thought it was obvious as it was.”

Max had no idea what to think. To be exact, at that very moment, he couldn't think anything at all. He only sat there paralyzed, staring at Takao, his head feeling strangely airy, as if his entire body was floating. Nothing about that moment felt real to him.

”But...,” he only uttered. ”But...”

But if that was true... then... everything he and Rei had been doing all summer had been...

nothing but them being the pair of idiots that they were.

As if reading his friend's thoughts, Takao carried on, ”What about you, though? Surely you've already been there, too?”

”Wha, what?” Max said in genuine confusion.

”Well, first kiss, that's what you asked about, right?”

”What??”

”Geez, you and Rei, obviously – are you okay, you seem really off today?” After dropping such a loaded question like it was nothing, Takao crossed his arms and looked at Max more closely, as if seeking evidence that the other was running a fever or something.

He could as well have been. Max's pale face suddenly gained a shade of scarlet.

”M-Me and Rei?” he parroted with another stutter. ”What about Rei...?”

Takao squinted, examining him for a few uncomfortably quiet seconds.

”Seriously?” he then said, ”Don't tell me you're not together yet? I mean, you're basically inseparable, you've done nothing but been together day and night this summer, I really thought you were an item already. Really?”

Max didn't know what to say. What  _ could _ he say to that? It's not like... like Takao was wrong. Now that he thought of it... he had spent the entire summer with Rei... coming up with ideas to get their friends together... every day.

”Ah, but,” he just uttered clumsily, ”I...”

”You do like Rei, don't you?” Takao asked.

It was strange to hear such a question from him. Or from anybody. It felt heavy and strange and a little embarrassing. Max lowered his head, his unfocused gaze wandering over the patterns of the bedcover without really seeing them.

”Yeah,” he said, ”I do.” Of course he did. Of course he liked Rei.

It was so obvious, and yet, that precise moment was the first time he really faced the thought. The feeling had always just sort of... been there. It was always with him. He hadn't ever  _ needed _ to face it.

”What's the problem, then?” Takao insisted, grabbing his own ankles while sitting cross-legged. ”I mean, Rei's crazy about you – I seriously had no idea you weren't even on the first base, or more like, you didn't even leave the home base yet, God.”

Max's heart skipped a beat.

”He's  _ what _ ?” he asked, lifting his gaze again. The longer the conversation carried on, the less his brain accepted it as reality; the floaty sensation had only grown stronger.

”Man, have you ever even seen him look at you?? Well, maybe you can't really tell it yourself, but, he's like so, ugh, it's almost gross. Even Kai finds it hilarious.”

Even Kai? Even  _ Kai _ was aware of this? Since when??

Max said nothing. The realization was now slowly hitting him, the realization that there could have been something he had been unfathomably blind to. He had always considered himself an observant individual, and the thought was so strange at first, it all must have been a big joke that Takao was playing on him.

But, amongst that confusion and disbelief, another feeling was inevitably crawling to the surface from deep inside Max. A warm and exciting feeling, a gentle flutter somewhere in his chest. Max followed it with his hand without thinking; he could feel his own heart jumping in a nervous rhythm.

Takao sighed and leaned all the way back, lying down on his bed with a  _ thump _ . ”I had no idea you'd be like this. You of all people, Max? And you've always been the smart one. Nah, I don't think I'm going to the festival, but I think you could follow your own advice and go with a certain someone.”

* * *

Max wore his star-patterned summer kimono as he met up with Rei at the gates. Rei was wearing a purple one he had borrowed earlier, as he still didn't have one of his own. Maybe he hadn't expected to stay in Japan for so long.

”Too bad they didn't want to come,” Rei said as they walked down the lively matsuri area together. Max had told him about the first half of his conversation with Takao; as expected, Rei was just as dumbfounded by the news that all their efforts had been completely and utterly pointless. It didn't seem to bother him too much, however. A lot of their ideas had been silly to begin with. Instead, he had genuinely hoped they could all have gone together as a group of friends.

They did all the typical matsuri activities, following all the jubilant people around them: those rigged games of shooting at prize targets that didn't move an inch no matter how hard one tried, goldfish scooping, trying all the different traditional food booths... Like Takao had said, it was all very much the same as every year, so it's not like any of it was particularly interesting to Max; but Rei had never attended a Japanese matsuri before, and accompanying him around was fun as it was.

And speaking of Takao's words, it all kept churning round and round inside Max's head, all the while he walked alongside Rei in the colorful festival area. The purple yukata was maybe a size too small, not notably much, but Max found himself observing his friend closely enough to notice how just a bit too much of his tan wrists were visible from the loose sleeves, and how the belt was just tight enough to show how slim his waist was. Rei wasn't wearing his usual headband, he had been skipping on wearing it every now and then since they visited the onsen, and his hair was tied in a high ponytail that swayed from side to side a little as he walked. The back of his neck seemed longer than usual.

Like this, an hour or so passed. People had begun moving to the sides of the main aisle of the matsuri area, to make room for a traditional parade that would pass through. Rei stopped under one of the paper lanterns they had helped making themselves. Max followed suit.

”Hey, why don't we go see the parade from that hill?” Rei suggested. ”We haven't been there in a while, and there wouldn't be other people there.”

Max agreed with the idea, he had already seen the parade up close before, anyway. They decided to buy some stick-fuls of dango first, then made their way to the grassy hill close by.

It was difficult to climb with flip-flops on, so both boys ditched them at the foot of the hill before making their way up. The soft grass felt cool and refreshing under their bare feet.

The entire matsuri area was visible from the top. The view wasn't half bad, with the ground lit by rows of colorful lanterns and the vast evening sky with its faint stars above them.

They were sitting side by side at the top, just the two of them and the dangos they had yet to eat. Rei noticed that Max was only pensively staring down at his.

”Is something wrong?” Rei asked. ”You've been looking a bit blue all day. Are you feeling sick? Or is it the thing with Takao? Or...”

Max felt his insides churn nervously. He hadn't realized his silent demeanor could make his friend worried. But of course it did.

Without a word, Max turned to stare at his friend. The calm yet intensely observant, brilliantly blue gaze was a bit unnerving to Rei, and he startled back slightly, but nevertheless, returned the look patiently.

Max was silently marveling on what Takao had said about Rei, about the way he looked at him being somehow special, and he examined his golden eyes without a blink, as if looking for an answer in them. Rei looked somewhat confused, but his eyes reflected his gentle soul, their hue resembling the warm light of the lanterns in the distance.

Max let his gaze wander off, falling meaninglessly on the dangos on his lap. He couldn't tell, he didn't see what Takao could see, but he now realized, it was because he got lost in those eyes himself, he didn't notice anything else. In similar manner, it was as if it presented itself crystal clear to Max for the first time now, the time he had spent with Rei all along without thinking about its significance, each passing day they had lived through side by side like this, and this summer; all the silly situations they had brought upon themselves together, Rei working hard to learn English from him, spending a night together at the inn and during the training camp, the distress over seeing Rei hurt that had, at the time, felt so overwhelming to him. Inside the space of his mind, Max took a step back, and viewed it all as a whole for the first time now, and everything that Takao had said made so much sense all of a sudden. He truly wasn’t as observant as he believed, when it came to himself.

Rei was still confused, completely unaware of Max's train of thought. He gnawed on one of his own dango, wondering if he had said something wrong.

”Rei,” Max then suddenly spoke, staring off into the distance, ”do you think we're going out?”

Rei, who was just about to eat the dango, choked a little on it.

”Wha- What??” he blurted out, bewildered.

Max turned to look at him again.

”Takao told me he thought we were. That it was really obvious to him. And, I mean,” he dropped his gaze once more, ”this is pretty much a date, isn't it?”

Rei blinked a few times, visibly out of words. Then, he turned his head away.

A panicked flutter filled Max's chest, and he looked at the other boy immediately thinking that he had said too much; but as he did, he noticed that the tip of Rei's pointy ear had turned scarlet. He was blushing.

Not daring to look at Max, Rei worded his response in a low mumble, he could as well have been talking to the dango in his now trembling hand.

”W-Well... When you put it that way... It is.”

Seeing Rei so thoroughly discomposed by this, Max couldn't help a tiny smile of relief. He knew how emotion could take his impulsive friend by storm, and he now figured, he had caught Rei so off guard that he didn't know what to do with himself. Everything that Rei felt, he felt so strongly and sincerely, Max found it endearing. 

He grasped at Rei’s sleeve, as if to keep him in place. To keep him from disappearing from his side.

”Listen… Do you really have to go back to China?” Max said quietly. “I’ve been thinking… I mean… I realized…” Stumbling on the words, not sure what it was that he even wanted to say, he fell silent for a moment.

Rei turned back to him coyly, a faint blush on his tan face, but his expression serious. “Max,” he said, “could it be… That’s why you’ve been so low-cast today? Because of me?”

Their eyes met again, they were both confused, overwhelmed, not sure what to say to the other. The jubilant sounds of the parade somewhere beneath the hilltop were distant, fading away in the awkward silence between them; although the festival wasn’t that far away, in that time and place, the two could as well have been sitting at the top of the tallest mountain, isolated from everything else.

“I feel like,” Max finally said, clutching the sleeve more tightly between his pale fingers, “at this point, if you left… it would be... weird. It would feel wrong. Rei... Could you stay here with me?”

Rei’s flushed features gained a deeper shade of scarlet. He lowered his gaze for a moment, then, gave a single nod.

“I want to stay here, too. And… And, if you want… spend time like this, together… some more.”

A wide smile spread on Max’s face, he smiled from the bottom of his heart, the said heart beating with such warmth and joy that it could have burst open. Wanting nothing more than to reassure the other of all the shades of happiness fluttering inside his chest, Max tucked at Rei’s sleeve, pulling him close to a soft kiss. It was awkward and clumsy and short, but neither of them cared.

Rei now responded with a smile of his own, still a little bashful, but it was the gentle smile that Max had learned to love since a point in time he didn't even know himself. And neither did Rei know when or where or why this particular fondness had exactly emerged. The feeling had just always been there, quietly within them, as a natural part of themselves, and each other.

The two, all too engrossed with one another, didn't pay much attention to the end of the festival somewhere below; nor the single shooting star that flew by somewhere far above them.

The summer might have been over, but Max and Rei were determined to stay together. Thus, they didn't need any more ideas.


End file.
